I cannot even remember if I have blogged this before. When I start off in Nible2, I was with Research and Development. I completed my first project real fast, ahead of time. Without another task, I was given the CIF2 task. CIF2 is a very new technology. No one else in the world has it. It was ground breaking. The flip side of CIF2 is, it has loads of problems. Of 750 units manufactured, 500 ended up as rejects. Being the world's first, there wasn't anyone to ask for guidance.
My task sounded simple enough. Find out what is wrong with the 500 dead printed circuit boards and make them work. I had a technician who could not care less. He was either smoking outdoors or smoking in the toilet. My first recommendation would be to sack him. On day 1, I didn't even have the bloody schematics. Took me a few phone calls and a visit to a sister company to obtain the schematics. Good thing I met up with him - he help me a lot and remains my friend till today. Like I've said, a face to face meeting helps heaps.
Now I had the schematic, there was no documentation to it. So, I had to reverse engineer the whole darn thing. This was not easy. Very hard work. A number of more senior engineers have attempted this task to no avail. Mind you, these engineers were involved with PDA design - sophisticated stuff back in 2003. They had a file that was 3 inches thick - lots of experiments with no results.
I figured that the engineers must be right. No point in repeating what they have done. Instead, I looked for other root causes. As for the technician, I did show him the importance of learning. He learned and became an expert in the CIF project. After 6 months, I enjoyed working with him and we are still friends. To think about it, I nearly had the poor bugger sacked.
To cut a long story short - I found the root causes. It was bad design, no documentation and horrible manufacturing processes. I did not complain or stopped there. I also fixed the darn problems.
It was a difficult problem. I could have given up easily, but I did not. I did something that the senior engineers didn't do - make a phone call to the sister company. The sister company managed the external design contractor. The contractor was bust in 2001. Couldn't talk to them directly.
The senior engineers before me saw it as a nuisance. They wanted to concentrate on PDA. They looked into it for a while and gave up to go back into their PDA projects. I took it as a challenge. Basically, I played the hand that was dealt to me. Wasn't a good hand, but you just have to play it.
Solving the CIF2 problem made me sort of an expert of some sort. I went on to develop the next generation of CIF readers - ended up with the best design in the world. In an international meet, our design beat the Germans, Japanese, US, EU and many other countries. I do not claim all the credit, as I was the team leader for a whole bunch of engineers. It was a nightmare trying to get the engineers to do something right.
By then, everyone wanted the CIF project. It was glamorous. I traveled worldwide - spending more time overseas than in the office. This is a fact. For every month, I will be away for at least 2 weeks. Visited more than 12 countries. CIF project was the priority of the company. Now, everyone wanted the project. But guess what? They still could not do it.
After leaving Nible2 for 2 years now, I am still a consultant to Nible2 for the CIF project. Now, I get to charge them more than RM10,000 per month, plus lots of profit. There is a reward from hard work - but I only get it when I started my own business. The Nible2 engineers still couldn't get things right - not because I am smarter, but it's because of the bad habits that they have.
My task sounded simple enough. Find out what is wrong with the 500 dead printed circuit boards and make them work. I had a technician who could not care less. He was either smoking outdoors or smoking in the toilet. My first recommendation would be to sack him. On day 1, I didn't even have the bloody schematics. Took me a few phone calls and a visit to a sister company to obtain the schematics. Good thing I met up with him - he help me a lot and remains my friend till today. Like I've said, a face to face meeting helps heaps.
Now I had the schematic, there was no documentation to it. So, I had to reverse engineer the whole darn thing. This was not easy. Very hard work. A number of more senior engineers have attempted this task to no avail. Mind you, these engineers were involved with PDA design - sophisticated stuff back in 2003. They had a file that was 3 inches thick - lots of experiments with no results.
I figured that the engineers must be right. No point in repeating what they have done. Instead, I looked for other root causes. As for the technician, I did show him the importance of learning. He learned and became an expert in the CIF project. After 6 months, I enjoyed working with him and we are still friends. To think about it, I nearly had the poor bugger sacked.
To cut a long story short - I found the root causes. It was bad design, no documentation and horrible manufacturing processes. I did not complain or stopped there. I also fixed the darn problems.
It was a difficult problem. I could have given up easily, but I did not. I did something that the senior engineers didn't do - make a phone call to the sister company. The sister company managed the external design contractor. The contractor was bust in 2001. Couldn't talk to them directly.
The senior engineers before me saw it as a nuisance. They wanted to concentrate on PDA. They looked into it for a while and gave up to go back into their PDA projects. I took it as a challenge. Basically, I played the hand that was dealt to me. Wasn't a good hand, but you just have to play it.
Solving the CIF2 problem made me sort of an expert of some sort. I went on to develop the next generation of CIF readers - ended up with the best design in the world. In an international meet, our design beat the Germans, Japanese, US, EU and many other countries. I do not claim all the credit, as I was the team leader for a whole bunch of engineers. It was a nightmare trying to get the engineers to do something right.
By then, everyone wanted the CIF project. It was glamorous. I traveled worldwide - spending more time overseas than in the office. This is a fact. For every month, I will be away for at least 2 weeks. Visited more than 12 countries. CIF project was the priority of the company. Now, everyone wanted the project. But guess what? They still could not do it.
After leaving Nible2 for 2 years now, I am still a consultant to Nible2 for the CIF project. Now, I get to charge them more than RM10,000 per month, plus lots of profit. There is a reward from hard work - but I only get it when I started my own business. The Nible2 engineers still couldn't get things right - not because I am smarter, but it's because of the bad habits that they have.
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