A tekkie anniversary: 20 years ago today, I took a step that changed my life forever

July 5, 1999 was the first day of summer break before my final year in high school.

Instead of spending the coming six weeks relaxing, my schedule looked differently: I had been able to secure a summer job at EDAG and felt lucky, as it was quite a famous company. Here, I was about to earn the budget needed for the many weekends to come until graduation.

As it turned out, I did not come for the money. In fact, I got a ticket for a journey that has caught me until today while not loosing any of its fascination.

On that Monday morning, 8:30am, 20 years ago, I found myself on a side table of the desk of Markus Herrlich who was leading the team I was assigned to in my fist officially paid assignment.

The department was creating engineering solutions for advanced body in white manufacturing on the highest technical level, already involving high-end robotic automation and sophisticated 3D design & simulation software tools. Today, this would be called Industry 4.0 by a lot of people. Large projects for next generation cars of carmakers were processed by EDAG as a turn-key solution provider from design to hardware. My new team played an important part in this process. Therefore, the many screens of my new colleagues showed digital versions of car plants from all around the world and we were in charge of making these factories producing cars!

Managers were genuinely interested into the contribution that a student may provide to their challenges.

To my surprise, I was not assigned to the expected “sorting paper or organizing spreadsheets” work. Instead, the deputy department head Daniel Auerbach & Markus Herrlich sat down with me and interviewed me about my experiences at school as my major was in mechanical engineering.

Based on this background, they identified a very meaningful field where I could provide value: To calculate mass moments of inertia of equipment to be put onto robot arms. (Knowing these values is important in order to define maximum robot speeds & acceleration). This task at the interface between CAD & Simulation was not yet integrated as it is today. Some smaller “apps” were starting to be available to support the task while the whole thing was not yet covered.

Being able to provide value to a high-tech industry as a student was an experience that got me hooked!

My main assignment thus, was to develop a method to obtain these mass moments of inertia in a reasonable way and to cross-validate one app provided by KUKA to support this work. As boring as that may sound: Being able to provide this kind of value to a high-tech industry as a student was an experience that got me hooked!

In the following weeks, I worked with a bunch of amazingly smart and friendly people (aka: nerds/techies) who took the time to introduce me into the inner workings of the automotive industry like project flows, decision making, technology challenges and differences of philosophy from one carmaker to another. After my assignment was done, I was given the opportunity to present my findings and recommendations to the complete department (at least the ones not being on summer vacation). Besides being very nervous this was a huge recognition that I remember like being yesterday.

One thing was clear to me when I left my desk : I must find a way to return and become an integral part of that team!

I do not remember the actual impact of my work and it was most likely less significant than I thought. However, when I left my desk one thing was clear to me: I must find a way to return and become an integral part of that team!

A bit more than a year later, I found myself in the same building, two floors down on the first day of an amazing trainee program that formed me to be an engineer with a diverse set of skills in the coming three years. Many things developed out of this foundation and one accomplishment led to another. The coming journey allowed me to feel the heartbeat of automation for 20 years, be part of the rise of the Chinese automotive industry almost continuously for the past 15 years or living abroad in Japan for an incredibly intensive episode of exposure to the Japanese automotive industry and challenging projects. It further allowed me to visit hundreds of production plants and being involved finding solutions in thousands of projects in most countries where the automotive industry is big (p.s. not making up numbers here!).

Looking back, I feel incredibly thankful for the fantastic people I met and the mentors I found along the way. On day one, Ewald Quell was head of the business unit who believed in me to be capable of stuff right at the start. Christian Körbel guided me closely to through my trainee program and trusted me with my first project manager role right afterwards. (I was 22 years of age when I was given the lead on a new BMW body shop project for China with quite some time on site in Shenyang). The great Masanori Honda taught be priceless lessons about the Toyota Way and navigating in Japan. Manfred Glotzbach trusted with a department manager position at the age of 25 & showed the pioneering skills needed when entering new terrain while Manfred Hahl always had an open ear to help when needed. I am even more grateful that we are still keeping contact!

When I left the EDAG & FFT family towards new frontiers I was able to continue my “mentoring streak” with finding Thomas Stähler and Bernd Keunecke at SICK who opened up another new world to me and allowed me to take responsibility and to prove myself. There are more people to mention who had an important impact on me but these were the ones most clearly involved.

This journey that I embarked onto 20 years ago is as fascinating today as it was back then and it still feels like it's just the beginning!

 What matters in life are the people & encounters. I really want to encourage everyone to take this investment into the people around you. It pays back with highest interest!

So, why am I posting this?

On the one hand, it is because I feel proud and a bit romantic on that milestone thinking it is worth sharing.

On the other hand - and more important - it is because I want to say THANK YOU to the people along the way who took their precious time and spending it on coaching a young student & engineer even until today when he’s not that young anymore…

The people & encounters is what matters in life and in this dimension, I am truly blessed!

I can only encourage everyone to trust and help the people around you with responsibilities that they can grow. You can make a great impact and I have never let down and had only great experiences.

Yours, André

Do not feel shocked about the numbers on the tax card. The currency is Deutsche Mark meaning that I made about 600 EUR in gas money for my final year in school.

P.S. The other thing is the fantastic Tombow 707 designers pencil that I received as a present after my summer job from the department head Wolfgang Sieckel. I still use this almost on a daily basis.