by Paul V. Arnold

If Scott Heitman were to write an acceptance speech for receiving his MRO Pro honor, he would have to thank his wife, friends, George H. Bush, a very special die, DeVry University and a bowl of rivets.

They all contributed to his ascent at Flexible Steel Lacing Company (Flexco) in suburban Chicago.

It started in 1990, with Heitman employed as a carpenter for a construction firm. That year, President Bush initiated the Gulf War, which led to:
1) a tight economy;
2) Heitman’s layoff from the construction firm in 1991;
3) a string of part-time jobs; and,
4) one of Scott’s friends sending him a Flexco job application form in 1992.

“I said, ‘There’s no way I am working in a factory,’” Heitman recalls. “I’m a construction worker.”

Enter Scott’s wife, who filled out the form in his name. Scott admits he was surprised when Flexco called to set up an interview. A few weeks later, he grudgingly accepted a job offer.

“My original goal was to be out of here in three to five years,” he says. “But once I got here and began understanding what industry was all about, I really got interested in it, especially in tool and die.”

Fast forward to 1997, and Scott’s working in the die room, caring for the company’s progressive dies.

“A die came in for service that was built on the outside. It had sensors and was experiencing some electrical problems,” he says. “Nobody here had been exposed to die sensing. So, I asked the company to send me to DeVry to learn electronics.”

Heitman quickly earned a degree in that specialty and then shifted toward a second degree in electronic engineering, taking classes in vision systems.

He applied his school smarts to the plant floor to address a nagging problem with dies and rivets.

“While a workpiece is in the die, we punch a hole into a metal strip and insert a rivet. A knurl on the bottom of the rivet shears as it gets put into the hole of the fastener,” he says. “The problem was that some of the rivets didn’t have knurls. When you insert a rivet without a knurl, it goes all the way through the strip and holds it up in the die. That crashes the die.”

 Heitman ascertained that a feeder bowl could align the rivets in front of a vision system. There, bad rivets could be detected and separated from good ones. But, where to find a feeder bowl?

“A co-worker said he knew of a feeder bowl sitting on a shelf that wasn’t being used,” he says. “We brought it in and started messing with it.”

After a few modifications, the system worked, saving the company many thousands of dollars in lost production time and die repairs.

Heitman believes many more personal and plant successes will come through adopting technology.

“We’re talking about buying some robotics within the next year. That’s very exciting,” he says. “When I first started going to school, I hoped we would have robotics and that I would be a part of that. My goal is to be the leader for technology on the plant floor.”

Unlike his original goal in 1992, Heitman may well realize this one.

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