Hi All The office is not the only workplace that uses adaptive technology to empower visually impaired employees. But a machine shop? Yes! Here's one more example of the many ways work can be adapted.
Sure, in the Office, but a Machine Shop? Meet Ron Parker How Hard Can It Be? What It Takes Electronic Tools Bring Greater Precision Sure, in the Office, but a Machine Shop? Lest you be under the impression that tin cups have given way only to computer work in be-cubicled offices, let us assure you that other jobs and other workplaces for employees with visual impairments do exist. Talented people who are blind or have little usable vision are working in agriculture, manufacturing, the arts, the service industry, media, the sciences, sports, hospitality and other industries. Seattle's Lighthouse for the Blind has a long history, one that precedes the use of computer-aided accessibility, of providing jobs for people who are blind, and/or deaf and otherwise severely disabled. "Apparently Boeing wanted a way to expand its local supplier base and also have a way to be helpful to the community," says manufacturing manager Don Helsel in CNC West, a magazine for the metalworking industry. The magazine describes how, about 50 years ago, the Lighthouse started a working relationship with the aircraft and space giant, Boeing, after doing only light manufacturing as an employment resource for local blind workers. What followed was the development of a highly successful metalworking shop that produces millions of dollars worth of high-quality machined parts per year. The plant is a model machine shop. About 80 of its 250 employees have disabilities, ranging from low vision to severe developmental disability. Its contracts include not only Boeing but the U.S. Army. These products must meet extremely high standards in terms of precision, but the Lighthouse machine shop gets the job done. How do the Lighthouse employees do it? High expectations of all its workers, rigorous training and creative applications of adaptive equipment. But perhaps most of all, they have approached the work with open minds and common sense, two keys to success in any industry. Meet Ron Parker But a machine shop? Isn't that precise and dangerous work? This was Ron Parker's view when he himself retired from a lifelong career as a machinist. He was skeptical when, after deciding he did not care for retirement, he learned about a job opening for a precision machining instructor in the machine shop at the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind. In short order, however, he learned what all supervisors of visually impaired people learn: there are more ways to perform a task than those who aren't visually impaired can imagine. Soon, he says, he was telling former co-workers, "You've got to see this. It'll knock your socks off!" Like most others, Parker interpreted the tasks at his workplace through his own imagination of what it is like to be blind. He assumed that, since he needs his sight to do the work, anyone else does. He was not aware that visually impaired people have been finding their own ways around difficult tasks throughout history -- and that blind machinists were already at work and had been for years before he met them. Parker is the perfect coach and cheerleader of his team in the metalwork shop. After his first taste of "can do," his imagination went wild. Every task his workers/students did received his new consideration, and he has been working to find new and better ways to adapt the work. "In the Boeing Department," he points out, "the manager, day-shift supervisor and the lead person in the CNC area are all visually impaired. The lead person for the conventional mill area (Bridgeport and horizontal) is totally blind. Most of the CNC machine setups are totally blind; two are visually impaired. Many conventional machine setups are totally blind, deaf-blind or visually impaired. Several of these individuals are also trainers, offering machine training to their co-workers who are machine operators." How Hard Can It Be? What It Takes It is the task of a machine shop to cut and shape sheet metal and bar metal to a customer's specifications. The finished product may be flat parts of airplane wings or slot machines or complex tools and dies for car engines or washing machines. But whatever the finished item, each and every one of them must be made to virtually infinitesimally precise measurements. Not only must it be custom designed but it also must be able to fit precisely where it is destined to go. A simple screw, for instance, must have threads that match the grooves of the pieces it will bind, or the finished product won't work. To ensure precision, machinists and other metalworkers use a variety of tools. For example, they use a caliper, which is an instrument used to measure the internal or external dimensions of objects. A simple mechanical caliper consists of two curved hinged legs joined at one end. The measurement is marked at the point where the legs are set on either side of an item. Computer Numerical Control (CNC) is a program control for machine tools. It stores the information about the production of a certain work piece geometry as characters in a program memory and the process steps necessary for the machining. When activated by a machine, CNC directs the performance of a whole series of operations, according to CyberMan: A Manufacturing Education Experience. Yet another tool is a mill, a machine that fabricates metal by repeating a specific action, such as cutting or grinding over and over. An operator clamps a piece of metal into a mill and passes it through the cutting bit, each time taking a little bit more off of it. A similar machine is a metal lathe, where the metal is rotated as pieces are cut or shaved off of it. Metal stamping machines cut it into predetermined shapes. Blind machine shop workers have used tactilely-calibrated mechanical and electrical tools for decades, but, with the advent of computer technology, machine shops have remarkably greater capacity to machine with precision. Add adaptive technology, such as screen magnification, speech and Braille output designed to work with PCs, and you have a fully functioning - and blind - machinist. Electronic Tools Bring Greater Precision Here's how Parker describes some of the high-tech tools his workers use: List of 8 items . "A product from the Mitutoyo Corporation, Voiceman voices the visual display window of all Statistical Process Control (SPC) measuring instruments, including micrometers, calipers, height gauges, indicators and protractors. We have also incorporated the Voiceman technology in the Digital Read Out (DRO) on standard Bridgeport mills, horizontal mills up to 15 horsepower and metal-cutting table saws. . "Edge finders modified to 'beep' when in contact with a metal part. . "Screen reading software has made three Bridgeport Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining centers fully accessible to totally blind machinist setups. . "A 21-inch monitor using ZoomText has made a water-jet CNC machine accessible to the visually impaired. . "A limited number of tactile sketches have been made. They have alphanumeric information in Braille, of actual parts, created using AutoCAD LT software and a Tactile Image Enhancer. . "Braille versions of various charts, e.g. Speeds and Feeds, RPM (revolutions per minute), IPM (inches per minute), SFPM (surface feet per minute) and CLPT (chip load per tooth) have been created with the use of Duxbury Braille software. Visually impaired individuals use a large-print version of the same charts. . "With the use of computers, not paper, for communication we make information visual, auditory or tactile. JAWs for Windows allow the screen to be read out loud or be sent to a Braille output display. . "Latest Item is a Braille Lite 2000 to serve as refreshable Braille display. It can function in place of the Voiceman and can serve as a talking scientific computer as well as a mass storage device for the hoards of information a machinist must keep at hand." Parker adds, "Safety is of prime importance at the Lighthouse. We have a very low accident rate. The information we provide through training is documented to ensure thoroughness, accuracy and consistency. A new machine operator or machine setup is thoroughly trained and then tested on his/her knowledge of the work area, the machine parts and safe operation of the machine. Each individual must demonstrate a complete understanding of the machine and operating procedures as well as competence and confidence before being 'signed off.' Some machines have been modified to allow for improved shielding." One important point to remember is that, although the Lighthouse for the Blind is a non-profit, its machine shop is operated as well (and according to as high standards) as any commercial shop. It more than pays its way and is able to turn back into research and development the competitive return earned from its contracts. Do not make the mistake of thinking this shop "shelters" its workers. Only those who make the grade stay. Bernie Vinther, Kennewick, Wash., ran a radio repair business before he lost his vision. Once he realized his eyesight was no barrier to continuing with his work, he made radio repair a hobby and eventually decided to go back to school to become a machinist. His invention of a small device that tests for precise roundness in a part is useful to any sighted machinist as well, says Vinther's instructor, Rob Walker, at Columbia Basin College (as reported in the Tri-city Herald). And the Lighthouse for the Blind's own Jim Smith became the first blind person in the world to be trained and certified to operate a CNC machine in 2000. During a recent conversation I had with DO-IT CAREERS Project Coordinator Sara Lopez, she lamented that so many employers view work opportunities for disabled people in terms of the lowest common denominator. "So often they beam at me with pride and tell me about all the disabled employees they have at their company," she said. "But then you learn, as they tick them off, that the jobs they've hired disabled workers for are all menial jobs, like laundry cart pusher and mailroom clerk. They don't realize that what we are talking about are college graduates." Perhaps these employers also need to learn that employees with disabilities can do a lot more than just tame a computer. If blind, deaf and otherwise disabled workers can do the variety of painstakingly precise work that Ron Parker's team does, then what job cannot be adapted? This may only be limited to your imagination and your willingness to let it, like Parker's, go wild. Let the inspiration from this Story give you the courage to step outside your comfort zone in 2007 and achieve your dream of Independence by not just thinking you can do something but Achieving It. Happy New Year. Ray To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio.org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml Visit the new archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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