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Transcript :
MK
Okay. So, Peri, if you could. Let’s go right to the beginning. How did you join us here at Steelo?
PC
I joined straight out of university, essentially. I joined in August 2020. I finished uni and was still working part-time at the petrol station. I was up, wanted to do something, you know, with actual interest in something I had an interest in. So I started playing. I knew I wanted a CAD-based role, something where I can actually model and that’s what I like doing.
So apply for one of the roles at Steelo and here I am.
MK
What are your main tasks with us and what tools do you use?
PC
So my daily task using Tekla which is specialized software for steelwork. It makes complicated tasks very straightforward. The whole interface is designed for steel, that’s my main task. But of course, like with a designer’s role, you get like, you know, problems that pop up with regards to fabrication material ordering.
So it’s really a variety.
MK
Yeah. Okay, so let’s break it down slightly with Tekla, how does it differ from AutoCAD? I guess you do have some experience with both. So what’s, what’s the difference?
PC
AutoCAD, the way I like to see is AutoCAD is a bit more general. It allows you to sort of get across any concepts pretty quickly because it is a very straightforward software to use. Tekla is specifically designed for steelwork, so anything to do with steelwork Tekla has, got that in the books. So that’s why Tekla is much more preferred in the industry or it’s much easier for us designers of steel designers to use this because there’s no fiddling about with anything because AutoCAD, you would have to manually go in there and change parameters while tackling it.
You click one point to another point you go beam ready there in front of you. It’s very easy.
MK
But then do you have to put in the shape of each section? Like, do you draw these shapes individually or are they thought of as.
PC
Part of a catalogue? So we have we have a catalogue which we can actually add to. So if we put up we don’t have a beam in this catalogue. We can manually add in. But yeah, it’s a huge catalogue full of all the plate profiles and beam profiles. You need to design any structure and we go on from.
MK
There and the connections, connections, connections work.
Peri
There are custom macros that we have Steelo, so design the design engineers have designed specific macros for whatever connection we will ever need, and these have been input into the software directly. So we just click a button, click two beams and depending on what connection you want, it’s right there in front of you. And then you can go into each connection and change.
Let’s say the bolt spacing, the bolt size. It’s all very smooth.
MK
For us and parameterized. If you need to change the spacing between the bolts, you just.
Peri
A few numbers.
MK
Exactly like, okay, and how do you know what to draw meaning where do you get the information from and.
Peri
From two sources. So one from the client’s engineer drawings. If they have this from the, let’s say, structural engineer, and the other one is from our sales team. So they will often simplify a drawing for us. If it’s not, if it’s messy and the structure engineers are, which often it is, or they or they just like sort of highlight the points that we need to model.
So using these two, we can generate a drawing. And it’s good because if there’s any discrepancies between the two able to talk to the client and be like, Hey, so which would you rather have? And that’s what that’s why it’s important to have this role.
MK
Yeah. And then once you produce the model, what happens next in the process?
Peri
So the model’s done, you generate the drawings, fabrication, you order the material, and we have a very specific layout for the drawing so that when we hand it over to fabrication, they know exactly what’s what and what needs to be done. So there’s plates that need to be fabricated, and then these plates are then given over to the welders world, as you know, gather the beams and the plates work together and that’s it.
MK
Okay. And when it comes to CNC data, how to export that.
Peri
We have another macro and C form macro where we click on it and all the info of the model is essentially transferred on. So I’ll be 550, maybe 600 machines from Voortman. And so production will be immediately be able to tell what they need to fabricate. So they have it downstairs, they find the matching documents that we hand them and then they drove the beam or the plate.
MK
And if something does go wrong, what’s what is the issue?
Peri
Normally the most common issue in design, that’s the most common issue in design is probably, I’d say, dimensions. So often we get like either we overlooked dimensions or material that we get in from suppliers is off by five mils or something like that. So that’s why it’s important when we get that’s why we give the production the drawings in advance so that they’re able to check each beam that comes in and measure it and see whether it’s okay.
Because if I understand that if it’s five miles off before fabrication off the fabrication, it’s going to be a bit more off than the whole thing is going to be messed up. So it’s essential that we check each element before fabrication begins.
MK
And how do you make sure that what you produce is correct, Meaning you didn’t make something dimensions or you got the height of the columns wrong?
Peri
Me personally, I have this system that I’ve been using since I joined Steel. I highlight every detail and the paperwork, so I go through each paperwork, everything I have from sales, and I highlight with a green highlighter to make sure what I told myself. Right, I’ve done that and I check it on the model about two times so that nothing’s missed.
MK
Yeah, Yeah. So going back through all the projects you’ve done so far, which one was the most exciting? One of the one you’re most proud of?
Peri
Oh, it’s funny because there’s one that I just finished like two days ago, which I’ve been working on for three months. I think we’ve mentioned in the Hollow. It’s one of them. It’s basically a roof for a for a building, which is now a parent’s house, funnily enough. But I’m working on for three months and what’s funny is the client didn’t know what he wanted, so he came to us and he said, I want a roof and I’ve got basic dimensions.
Peri
I’ve just got the width and the length of the structure. And he didn’t know the angle for the roof. You don’t know anything. So for me, it was it was my job to sort of like have a look at the engineer draw and see the proposed design. And from that sort of generate my idea of what I think the roof could be like.
Peri
And then from there on, he used these my drawings, send it to a structural engineer. Calculations came back and there was a lot of back and forth, but eventually got confirmed. And I’m pretty proud of that. Yeah, Yeah. I didn’t think I’d see the end of it, but.
MK
Oh, we should go decide to see it.
Peri
Yeah, I should. I should.
MK
Say this is your.
Peri
Parent’s house. Yes, yes, yes. I was thinking about going down there at one point.
MK
Just are you going to have to visit your parents day? So on. There they are on the other side of the spectrum, which was the most dreaded job or the one you ran, but enjoy.
Peri
It’s tough. Well, there was one I think is more about the lack of experience I had at the start, which made a few more jobs a bit more daunting for me. There was one around Christmas 2020, I believe a lot less experienced, but it’s jobs like those. I can remember what the job was, but it’s jobs like that that allow me to sort of learn more.
That’s why I always tell the designers as well, like it’s jobs that make it tough for you, that make it worthwhile because you know, you’re learning in that process. The mistakes you make in those big jobs are the ones that you will not make in the future.
MK
So it’s so what’s your biggest screw up?
Peri
My biggest screw up. Jeez, there’s been a few cranks. Cranks were all my kryptonite at the start, I have to say, because it was like, Come straight. Our uni. Like it was. It was daunting to see this angle. You know, these it’s very it’s very like it’s there’s a lot of work that goes into these angle beams. But that was I made a few mistakes at the start but I remember leader who was design team leader at the time, she was really helpful, sat down with me and she was okay.
I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to know the cracks. And I think after that was pretty soon.
MK
Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned that in the past you knew you wanted a CAD role. How did you know you wanted a control?
Peri
Well, it’s funny because. Okay, I’ve always been around blender and blender and all these, like, free, like, 3D modelling software’s. I was just playing around that just for fun. I just make all these, like, models based on video game characters. Yeah, I used to see. But I also loved architecture and like buildings and stuff like this. So I thought to myself, how would I be able to sort of maybe mix the both of these interests together?
And then I found the design engineering course at University of Greenwich. So that allowed me to play around with conceptual modelling, but also practical use in real life industries. And that’s all where I went on the tree every day. I mean, it was just modelling, just cad work. I used Rhino Auto, CAD, SolidWorks, and they really let us play around with everything.
MK
Yeah, Yeah. How about robots? Because you mentioned before that. Yes, I’ve. I’ve been involved in robots. Yes.
Peri
So what? You know what, what we did was depending on what your course was, they designed, they picked a team together for coursework project. And so, each of these teams we have a different engineer with different role. And we had a project where we had to design a robot which is able to go up to a small fire and put it out.
So it was an automated fire robot. You could think of it, and my job as design engineer was to make a 3D model for a CAD model with all the labels and drawings. Pretty much what I do here, but just a conceptual and then the structural engineers, all of the civil engineers have to calculate the the water and you know how much it would shoot out and stuff like this.
So that’s that was my first interest in robotics, like this idea of generating something that can do a task by itself enough without any input. That’s pretty much a more so until this Boston Dynamics stuff. You know, I’m always looking at their videos because that’s like mind blowing.
MK
But so what do you like most about Boston Dynamics?
Peri
I like seeing the progress videos. Like, I mean, if you see the stuff from like 2000s. Yeah, this is very basic. Like it looks kind of funny looking at it now, but now I’ve never seen these videos of the obstacle courses that these robots can go across. And to me it’s mind blowing because for each step that that robot is taken, that there’s like lines and lines of coding that we can’t see, but it’s there and so like, I mean, I’m not, I’m not skilled in the coding part of, you know, we’re just way better than me in understanding that kind of stuff.
Peri
But I just really find it interesting.
MK
Have you seen the clip where the guy is using a hockey stick to?
Peri
Yes, yes, yes.
MK
Knock the box out of the hands of robot.
Peri
It’s like really strongly. It calculates everything. Like it knows. It’s just Yeah, it’s fascinating.
MK
Yeah. Yeah. So what’s your biggest challenge now in your role as a design engineer?
Peri
Biggest challenge now is of I’d say recently we’ve been taken on a lot larger projects and I think the challenge now is trying to find a way for not just me, but for the whole Department of Design to make sure that these are done smoothly and efficiently because it’s well, recently we’ve had like some sort of hiccups and it’s allowed us to sort of look back and go, Right, okay, clearly we need to rethink some processes here.
MK
So what do you mean by rethinking the approach to this project?
Peri
So we think that it’s best if we split these large projects into smaller chunks because that because we deal with small to medium chunks daily, that’s usually project size it. So when we get a large project, trying to do it as a large project does not work for us because we don’t have these processes in place and it would just mess everything up.
So we think we’ve decided that splitting them up will allow us to treat one large project as three medium projects. That’s yeah. And it allows us to go a lot smoother as opposed to ordering 200 beams for one day being stuck on production with, okay, where do we go now? So, you know, yeah.
MK
Which happens. And we did have a huddle on the.
Peri
On the action.
MK
Yeah. So, so much material arriving and I guess the same principle applies to everyday life. Like when people say they want to clear the garage, it’s a daunting task, throw it away. Whereas if you just don’t buy one shelf, yeah, then it becomes a manageable task. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How about your artistic side? Because. Because you create out drawing to you.
Do you still do any of the.
Peri
Yeah, I try to do at least a sketch a day. It’s a habit that I go into all doing often A-level. And my teacher was like, do a sketch a day or do something a day. And he said, It’s not too you don’t have to do something beautiful is to get your idea on paper. So I watch, I get a lot of galleries and I listen to all of artists and they always say, you know, while other people have journals or some sort of like, you know, book list that they write for artist, it’s a sketchbook.
Peri
It’s it’s to get an idea down what you’re thinking of that day. So I’m home. I’ve got six or seven that I’ve collected over like since 2018. Well, I’ve just sketchbooks have people come around the house. You can have a look at them, but they’re not like amazing sketches. They’re just ideas. What I was thinking that they’re what I was feeling that day.
MK
And so what was your recent sketch about?
Peri
Recently? I’ve actually started doing sketches of the design engineers, so I thought design the office needed a bit more colour. So I’ve been doing so we had a we have a scoreboard up of how many X points we got a day and I thought it looked a bit too militaristic, a bit of boring, bit too harsh, you know, I don’t know.
Adam got this many things, just his name on top. So I did a portrait for the designers and I said, Okay, here’s your portraits and here’s your points, and it’s a bit more fun.
MK
I like portraits on character. I like.
Peri
Portraits. Yeah, and portraits, it looks like them, but just added a bit colour and stuff. So yeah, that’s my most recent. But I also took part in in October. And if you never enter now, so every October, like artist all over the world, I encourage to you every day you get a prompt, a present prompt list by the organization.
So let’s say the 2nd of October, the prompt word might be something like Scurry, and you have to draw or sketch something in that using that prompt. Okay, So people and everybody takes part, industrial designers take part and they might do like an industrial robot which is designed to like scurry or something abstract artist take part and they do some weird complex stuff.
MK
To do sell You asked to present it.
Peri
So I’ve thought about it, but I’ve had a chat with my fiancé about it, like whether I could sell it. I’ve looked at like different venues and stuff, but for now I’m just going to do it for fun. But yeah, but maybe, maybe in the future, once I like, actually, I don’t know. I have a distinct style because that’s what people look for.
Peri
They look for something, something individualistic about you. So.
MK
Yeah, Yeah. So going back to Steelo, you also got the role of a C and C co-ordinator. What does that entail?
Peri
Essentially ensuring that the machines are running smoothly because these machines are complex. I mean you can imagine like it’s and they’re working pretty much from the start to the end of the day, they don’t stop the drilling, they’re cutting constantly. And for my role, it’s like basically it’s just ensuring that regular maintenance is upheld, making sure that no component is going bust.
Peri
Essentially, like as soon as the operators let me know that there’s a bit of, you know, a bit of efficiency loss in the machines. We’ll open the machine up. We have a look at what could be the issue.
MK
So what was today’s issue about today’s issue?
Peri
Holes were being drilled to millimetres off and we’ve had this issue before and it’s from what I’ve had a chat with Voortman and they said it could either be a sensor issue. So essentially the laser is off. So it’s reading the wrong point and so the machine goes in the wrong place or which is bigger issue is the bearing is off.
So the whole machine can you match the whole machine slightly tilted at like a few point-degree angle, but it’s enough to make a difference. So to them, luckily the sensor for now, that’s what we think. So I’ll one of our pros he went into the computer and he adjusted it to MILS so it’s drilling correctly now.
So we’ll have to see at the end of the day, if it’s still like this, if it’s not, I mean, just the mechanical. Yeah.
MK
Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, Thanks you very much for today’s conversation. And remember to subscribe so that you don’t miss out on our future podcasts. Thank you.
Peri
Thank you.
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