From the fall of 2010 to the spring of 2016, I spent the majority of my career working on factory process conversions for a major, US based, confidential semiconductor manufacturer. The sum total of major conversions was roughly one per year with smaller projects sprinkled in across the campus. The major conversions ranged anywhere from 70 to 300 million dollar projects and spanned anywhere from 6 to 18 months. In terms of scope within those projects it could be said that each major conversion contained a multitude of projects across the campus in order to provide the manufacturing process with the mechanical and process infrastructure upgrades and additions it required to perform the next iteration of microprocessor chip production. Due to the confidential nature of the client I've decided to roll all of these conversions into one portfolio item and talk more specifically about the major points of interest across all of the projects and my role within them.
I started out as one of the teams mid level designer/drafters focusing on process exhaust, which ma seem like a pretty narrow focus area but at an industrial campus like this it provides a wide array of opportunities. My responsibilities included field verifying existing conditions, designing distribution routing, equipment layouts, and preparing construction drawings. This system focus provided me with the opportunity to be lead mechanical designer and overall space coordinator for two new 30K and 50K acid exhaust scrubbers to be designed and coordinated in 3D using AutoCAD MEP and Revit. It was the first LOD 300 modeling project I had been involved at that time and little did I know that it would set the stage for my future with that A/E firm. With the limited available staff trained in the design software at the time of the project, I was also responsible for modeling the process piping content and coordinating with the process teams. This opportunity also enabled me to branch out of the process exhaust system focus and start working on piping systems known to this client as process mechanical which included most non-chemical based piping systems.
With a now broadened system focus and a strong understanding of the systems throughout the campus as well as project structure and politics, I would be designated lead mechanical designer and eventually lead process and mechanical designer and responsible for understanding project scope/schedule/budget and delegating and coordinating design efforts throughout the process and mechanical design staff.
One thing I really enjoyed and admired about the Portland, OR based Evergreen Engineering, which would eventually merge with and assume the namesake of Toledo, OH based SSOE, was their desire and ability to be at the forefront of evolution of the design engineering field. At that time industrial and commercial engineering clients were beginning to see the benefits of integrated project delivery (IPD) and started pushing A/E firms and contractors to work in cooperation during design rather than at odds during constuction. Our design team would embark on its first IPD project which was the conversion of an unused portion of a recently overhauled fab building. The project was a roughly 75 million dollar construction project where we teamed up with a national construction management team, JEDUNN, to execute the project as a fully integrated joint venture. Using a homegrown method of making fabrication drawings for the mechanical trades, we developed the entire design to LOD 400 using Revit. This was before the days of Revit's out of the box fabrication parts feature and in my humble opinion is still a far better solution. Using point cloud scans for as built modeling, we developed minimal construction drawings for estimating, permitting, and owner buy off, and developed fabrication drawings directly from the design model in parallel with design schedule. My role in all of this was to design and coordinate a wide range of scopes including exhaust and process mechanical distribution systems. The design coordination effort was paramount since we would be generating fabrication drawings directly from the design. Using navisworks to ensure tight coordination with design model elements and existing elements by way of the point cloud scans we obtained buy in from the trades. This project gave me an opportunity to learn and entirely new skill, pipe detailing and shop drawing creation. At this point, I'd like to tip my hat to the folks who have done this by hand and in the field for so many years. It is a tedious process that requires meticulous attention to detail, especially when you are detailing pipe that will be pre-fabricated in a fab shop. You are the eyes of the fab shop and there is very little room for error. At any rate, I quickly got up to speed on the basics and continued to refine my skills over the following years with the help of some fellow piping detailers we employed to further our capabilities as an IPD outfit.
With the success of our first IPD project we set out on the next project on a much grander scale. This would be a 300 million dollar design and construction project that would span the greater half of the campus. It included a large number of facility upgrades including a few high capacity process and mechanical equipment installations and upgrades, as well as a high volume skybridge, or link, connecting production processes from the north side of the campus to the south and more modern side of the campus. The link would allow the newer production fabs to perform some of the processes for the older original fabs that were no longer capable of performing mostly due to the size of the newer production equipment. For this project my role was to once again lead the mechanical design team, coordinating and passing down information from the engineering leads and project management. I would also take on the role of being a leader on the IPD portions of the project and coordinate content reviews with the trade contractors and produce fabrications drawings that would be developed from the design model.
Out of this large scale IPD effort it became apparent that the mechanical and process teams were the main drivers for the development of our fabrication drawing capabilities, although our powerhouse structural department played a large role as well. With the understanding that process and mechanical were now driving a large part of our production efforts, and my knowledge and history with these projects, my role as leader of the designers would become official with the promotion to section manager of the process and mechanical design staff. This would allow me the ability to delegate and assign tasks on a department level to facilitate the development of our IPD capabilities, ensure staff was being utilized to their full potential, and act as a ambassador to their career development should they choose to utilize me in that capacity.
With the new roles set in place, our next adventure would take us to silicon valley, the heart of the tech world. Well technically a little south of silicon valley if you consider the heart to be center city San Francisco. At any rate, although not a personal accomplishment of mine, its worth mentioning that with the success of the two previous IPD projects between SSOE and JEDUNN, the team would be awarded certain exclusivity in regards to projects involving the client's west coast operations. This led our team to their Santa Clara facility to perform a major overhaul of an aging factory. We would execute this project in a similar fashion to the previous two, with one exception, it would be the first IPD project we would perform remotely and not directly from the job site. Between design and construction we had a small crew of boots on the ground but relied heavily on our ability to work directly with point cloud scans. In addition to my newly appointed management role, I would also act as lead designer for the process and mechanical design teams. The new org structure of the design staff allowed me to blur the lines between the process and mechanical teams which provided a good deal of flexibility that we did not have on previous projects. With this project in full swing and work still going on at our home campus, I also did a large amount of production design work on both campuses. My biggest claim to fame on the southern California campus was the design and coordination of a new acid scrubbed exhaust yard containing three 15k acid scrubbers and exhaust fans. Due to space constraints of the campus, the new jungle gym of scrubbers, fans, and make up air handlers would essentially be a vertical configuration with the scrubbers at the base and the fans, air hanlders and support equipment other thee upper levels. This configuration required a lot of coordination and constant communication with all disciplines involved. An added twist was that a new utility trestle spanning the entire campus would be passing through our new scrubber yard.
This would be my final endeavor with SSOE (for now anyway) and a love-hate relationship with a demanding and challenging client that I leaned so much from being a part of its projects. I departed from SSOE in the spring of 2016 to pursue other goals and exposure to other industries. In the grand scheme of things my time in the industrial semi-conductor industry was brief at 6 or so years, but I had an outstanding number of opportunities to grow my career in that short time. I had the opportunity to take part in the design of a wide range of scopes including boilers, chillers, cooling towers, pumps, acid exhaust scrubbers, flammable exhaust abatement units, make up air handlers, exhaust fans, chemical and pure water systems, pipe and ductwork distribution systems too numerous to count, cleanroom conversions, and utility trestles. I had designed all of these things in varying levels of detail, from schematic to fabrication ready, and in varying capacities, from glorified drafter to manager and leader. Reading this sometimes makes me wonder why I would ever leave, but life must go on and change is and integral part of growth. Thanks for reading...