( Having FUN at ) Digital Process Engineering 1976-1980

This document summarizes Jeff Bergart's experiences in Digital Process Engineering at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1976 to 1980, as part of his 23-year career at DEC (1976-1998) as a "Closet Engineer" or "Bean-Counter." The presentation highlights how Process Engineering achieved financial success and a fun work environment by focusing on cost reduction and process improvements.

Key points include:

• Early assignments involved reviewing manufacturing operations, such as in Puerto Rico, identifying "obvious" and "out-of-the-box" savings (e.g., water conservation).
• Analysis revealed significant inefficiencies, with 52% of time spent on testing, inspecting, and repairing products, and a higher proportion of hand-assembled parts.
• A major initiative involved teaching engineers to measure their work by understanding "Digital's Overhead Burden," which showed overhead costs were over four times direct labor costs, with a large portion in non-production centers.
• Engineers were trained to use Capital Appropriations Request (CAR) forms to evaluate projects based on cost, benefits, and various measurements like cost reduction, cost avoidance, and impact on inventory.
• Process Engineering demonstrated a strong return on investment, achieving a 2.7:1 cost/benefit ratio in FY 1977, meaning $2.70 was returned for every $1 spent, with total savings exceeding $12 million.
• Specific successful projects highlighted include REZERO ($2.5M savings) for automating component insertion, APT vs ACT ($2M savings) for controlling computers during thermal cycling, and the PCB Gate ($1M savings) for bare board testing.
• The presentation emphasized the importance of "cooperation" between design engineering, manufacturing, and process engineering to achieve lower manufacturing costs.
• Jeff Bergart expressed gratitude for his time in Process Engineering, crediting it with fostering out-of-the-box thinking and experience with matrix management. He also mentions future roles in other DEC divisions.
• The presentation concluded with additional content on DECTalk (text-to-speech technology) and a "SUPER" Poulsen Budget Presentation.