Being an Engineer
Being an Engineer
S5E24 Dion Lopes | Manufacturing processes & Implementing New Technologies
In this episode, we delve into Dion's remarkable journey in medical device manufacturing. We explore his wealth of experience and expertise, spanning crucial aspects such as product development, regulatory submissions, and the implementation of various manufacturing technologies.
Main Topics:
- Pneumatic welding process challenges and qualifications
- Best practices for developing and optimizing nitinol welding processes
- Experience overcoming a tough FDA regulatory hurdle
- Principles for mentorship, failure, and learning in engineering
- Evaluating and implementing new technologies
- Skills required for today's manufacturing engineers
About the guest: Dion Lopes is an accomplished engineering leader with a deep track record in the medical device industry. Dion's career highlights include key roles at several top organizations, such as Director of Manufacturing Engineering at Imperative Care, Senior Manager of Manufacturing and Production at Intersect ENT (now part of Medtronic), and various leadership positions at PneumRx and Ortho Clinical Diagnostics.
Links:
Dion Lopes - LinkedIn
About Being An Engineer
The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.
The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us
Hello and welcome to the being an engineer Podcast. Today we are joined by Dion Lopes, an accomplished engineering leader. With a deep track record in the medical device industry, Dion has worked in a variety of roles such as director of manufacturing engineering it imperative care, Senior Manager of manufacturing and production at intersect en ti now part of Medtronic and various leadership positions at PneumRx and Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics. His expertise spans across product development, regulatory submissions, and the implementation of various manufacturing technologies. Dion, thank you so much for joining us today on the being an engineer podcast.
Dion Lopes:Thank you, I'm excited to be here.
Aaron Moncur:Well, what made you decide to become an engineer all those years ago,
Dion Lopes:you know, growing up, you know, I'm Portuguese. Soccer is huge in my, in my family. And my dad is an electrician by trade, but he's kind of a master of few tinker and experts of many. Nice it will. So he likes to get in and figure things out. And so I was always with him growing up. And as he would figure things out on the car, we, you know, rebuild a carburetor, we, you know, do something or, you know, come together with a jig to weld something for a tractor. I always liked that I always loved taking things apart. And it was it kind of was just a natural progression from there into engineering.
Aaron Moncur:Wonderful, terrific. I was similar, not so much with welding things, but just always taking things apart when I was a kid and putting them back together, fixing my bike and Legos. I don't know where Legos a part of your background as a kid, hey, we're, yeah, we're awesome. All right. Well, you've worked with a variety of complex manufacturing processes, and one that I think I read about just a little bit was pneumatic welding for nitinol wire, which I don't even know what pneumatic welding is, to be honest, that was a new term for me. Maybe you could talk just a little bit about that. And then if you can share things that of course, are not confidential one or two key challenges that you've faced integrating this process and maybe how you overcame it. Sure.
Dion Lopes:So, when we say pneumatic, he was basically welding with pneumatics right. So the welder that we had it was a standard welding process, we had electrodes, we had dyes to hold the material, we had, you know, argon gas, we had, you know, times standard process controls. But what we had with this and were manufacturing products is, it was a very manual process early on, operators were feeding a wire in, they were trying to get a certain amount of the wire out of the dyes, and then manually pressing the dyes against the welder, if you will, to be able to start the welder and have an arc, create the ball on the end of the wire. But as you can imagine, there's it's all operator variability, how they grip how far they pull out the wire, you know, how much is extending how consistent the surface contact is. And so there was just a lot of variables that weren't controlled when I started with the company. That's, you know, it's the nature of the beast, where, you know, when you have a company that's, you know, early stage startup, the processes are more arts, right? And then, you know, the challenge is you become more commercial as you take them into more science, right? So, so that's what we had to do. In this instance, we were moving manufacturing facilities. And as such, we were we had to qualify all of our equipment and processes in order to get BSI and FDA approval to manufacture so this was one of our critical processes that was kind of hit or miss with the with the manual process. So I worked with several engineers, operators, technicians to get feedback and develop a semi automated piece of equipment that used linear stages with dials where you could dial in x, y, x and y orientation to center it on to the opening of the welder specific tools to allow consistent exposure of the amount of material the amount of wire that had to be welded, so it was consistent, the amount that was protruding from the dyes, and then control meeting of the surfaces so that when you hit the button to well, we would get consistent ball in terms of diameter and location on the wire where the centers were concentric.
Aaron Moncur:What are some unique challenges to welding with nitinol? As opposed to, you know, aluminum or steel for people who are listening right now and thinking, Oh, I've got a project coming up where I actually think we're, we might have to use nitinol to weld something. What are some unique challenges there? And what, again, if it's not, you know, some confidential process? Are there? Are there any pro tips you have to being successful doing so?
Dion Lopes:So, so for us, it was interesting that that was actually one of the first times I've welded with nitinol, everything else that I've been I've done has been around laser cut stents out of out of tubing. And so from this standpoint, it's really getting the process optimized to be able to well, night ball, it's just like characterizing any process where material is a variable, right? So there wasn't, there wasn't anything extremely challenging. With it, it's just making sure you have a properly characterized process for that. Now, obviously, one of the things you need to make sure when you when you're processing and melting nitinol are the the properties of the of the welded nitinol. Have you done anything where you you caused any embrittlement or impacted the strength though, that nitinol and the nado not only of the base, nitinol, but the ball, all that's been reformed. But with doing proper testing, and ensuring you have the proper tensile and, you know, the, the the tips that are welded, that are melted, aren't aren't falling off. That's what helps you determine how reliable your process is nice
Aaron Moncur:that you talked about going from a manual process to a more automated process or more like full production process? What what are some of the challenges that you commonly see, when you're taking a manual process where, like you said, there's may be some more more of an art to it than than science, and you're trying to move it to a more science based production process? Well, what are some of the common challenges that you've seen?
Dion Lopes:Well, I think, you know, first and foremost, you have to understand the, the state of the business that you're working for, right? Like, you know, when when a company's early stage startup, you want to make a safe product, you want to make an efficacious product, you know, you want it to be reliable for the patients, right? And so you're doing anything you can to get that product into production, right? The stability of the process, the, the throughput of the process, aren't, aren't necessarily the reliability of the process aren't really the things that are first thought up, right? It's when you're going from from that early stage, and to try to develop into more commercial organization, I usually use the term putting your your big boy pants on that as you start to see more volume with that you're generating more clinical evidence, where really, you get to see the beauty of the art that was brought into production, and then just the complexity of how you need to take that art and make it into more science, that stable, predictable, while maintaining the safety and efficacy for the patients. Right, so yeah, so that, you know, that that, to me, is is one of the most critical things, you know, for from a process standpoint, right? When you when you're looking to develop a process, right? It's the foundation of how you properly you know, assess, characterize, develop a process, foundationally it, it's the same, whatever industry you're in, it's that you just need to understand the criticality of that process on whoever the end user is. So for example, you know, laser cutting an endovascular stent for use in a patient, that process and the the processes after that, to make that stent are much more critical than processes, let's just say that you would use to manufacture 10s of 1000s hundreds of 1000s of CDs, right the the reliability that you need, the criticality that you need is is that much more, but the foundational understanding of the process, you have to be able to understand the process, the constraints are different, right? Your your volumes are very different, right? So what you can accept that risk is very different. There's much more Much less of an appetite for risk for, you know, an uncontrolled process when you're making medical devices than when you're making, you know, CDs or DVDs. Right?
Aaron Moncur:Yeah. Right. For for those engineers listening who maybe aren't super familiar with process development and manufacturing, can you give just one or two specific examples? Not stories necessarily, but examples of what what are the process characteristics that you're referring to, right? You're, you say, dialing in the process? What are some examples of that, you know, at a very detailed level.
Dion Lopes:So when you when you look at a process you're looking for, you know, what the inputs to the process are, and what the outputs of the process that you want. So, for example, like, if you're, if you're honing inside of a tube, right, that's been that's been laser cut, right? So you have to understand what the output of that process is, right, you have a surface finish that you're looking for, you have an ID that you're looking for, after you finish clearing out material. And then you need to look at what the inputs to that process. And I usually refer to them as, like, what are the levers and buttons and switches, that you have to be able to understand and control and set properly in order to get the output of those processes. So it could be you know, speed, it could be, you know, diameter of, you know, whatever you're using to to impact the surface of the two, which could be, you know, compression pressure on what you're what you're doing to keep the cut pattern held tightly while you're trying to remove the material to allow consistent material removal. It could be, you know, linear speed. So there's a lot of different buttons and settings that you can you you can set in order to optimize that output. And one of the things with that is, you know, there's there's interactions between them. So you want to understand what, what are the settings that are optimal when you identify which ones are critical to the process to get you that output that you want, and others that aren't critical that you don't have to worry about getting a range. Because what's important we need develop a process is when you understand the parameters that are critical, you have a range of those because you will have material variability, environmental and varied variability, you know, depending on how semi automated or automated the process is, you'll have operator variability. So you've got to be able to accommodate those right material variability, as I said, so you've got to be able to accommodate those when you develop process. Terrific
Aaron Moncur:example. Yeah, when I was a younger engineer, you know, it took me a little while to understand what what people were referring to when they talked about process. And it was, I think, several years before, it dawned on me that, oh, when they say process, what they're talking about is a manufacturing process. And the word process in the context of engineering anyway, is often just, it's referring to manufacturing. So what for those of you out there who maybe don't have a strong background in manufacturing, or you're a student, or you're new to the engineering? Practice, when you hear the word process, think manufacturing and manufacturing processes, it's how we make things, how do we how do you make this thing? Right? That's what we're talking about. Okay. Dn kin, can you talk a little bit about an experience maybe where you had to navigate through a particularly tough regulatory hurdle? And what strategies that you used to get across the finish line there, you've worked in medical devices for a long time and, and regulatory is a very large and significant aspect of the medical device development world. So if you could share just maybe a quick story about a challenge that you had in the context of regulatory and how you and your team were able to overcome that.
Dion Lopes:Right? No, no problem. Yeah, I've got I've got one that is probably one of the one of the most memorable. Oh, my career. So, you know, I'm an operations guy through and through, I've worked on, you know, devices that are implantable surgical devices. Obviously, the regulatory requirements when you're looking at implantables and stuff are different than you would have for, you know, for, let's say, surgical instruments and so forth, right? Endovascular, like bronchoscopes and stuff, right? The requirements are different. And so we had one, where I was working on on nitinol stents where we had a really technical question that that came back from the FDA on One of our tests that that we were doing, and it was one that the team when when the question first came in a lot eyes opened up because it was extremely technical, that they were asking so that the responsibility to answer that question was given to me. But I'm one that is the values a team and I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. And I'm gonna, if I don't know the answer, I'm gonna understand where to find it. So when, when I was given that responsibility, I quickly assembled a team of SMEs, you know, within r&d quality regulatory multiple engineering fellows to to assess, you know, the questions and dissect and break them down. And we established an action plan of how we're going to address them, then, that I went ahead gather a bunch of technical material that was going to help be able to answer portions of multiple portions of that question. And then I reviewed, read through the technical material, and compile it all. And as I'm giving you this, this over a matter of several weeks, probably about two and a half weeks, of, of doing all of this gathering, reviewing consolidating, drafting and initial response, kind of running through it myself as being it. And then I took that initial response and sent it to the one of our engineering fellows that I worked closely with. And he reviewed a we worked with other members of the team, finished it, finished the revisions, got it to where we thought it would be good, handed it over to regulatory, they had a couple questions for us, we revised it, ran through it with, you know, with a couple other members of the regulatory team just to make sure everyone was was on board and submitted it. And we got a response back from the FDA that they they accepted our explanation and our response, and it was, it was a huge win. For us. It was probably one of the like I said earlier, one of the biggest highlights of my career, always a tough challenge. It was, you know, when you're when you're putting in a submission to be able to respond to to the FDA and have them agree and accept that response. is just, it's really exciting. And it's really fulfilling.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, well, congratulations, what a big way. And you mentioned that when you received this responsibility, you started reaching out to different people, smees subject matter experts and fellows and different people on your team. And I think that's a really important aspect to highlight, because especially younger engineers, I think can fall into the trap of thinking that they need to understand all the technical things, they need to be able to answer all the questions. And that's just not the case. Right? You're you're never going to have all the information, all the knowledge to answer all the things. So knowing where to go to find those answers, who to pull in with different team members to pull in. That's so valuable. And you don't even know how to know. Yeah, you don't need to do it all on your own. It's always a team effort.
Dion Lopes:And you shouldn't, and you shouldn't do it all on your own. Right. Yeah.
Aaron Moncur:Okay. You have spent a lot of time in your career mentoring other engineers. Thinking back to some of those conversations you've had what what are some principles that you've emphasized when When guiding younger engineers?
Dion Lopes:So I have a couple principles that I that I that I live by both when I mentor and you know, when I look for a mentor for myself, I have several mentors that, you know, I worked with 1520 years ago that that I'll still reach out to when certain situations arise. So to me, what you really need to in order to properly mentor you've got to be able to ensure that you know, your mentee understands and they have an environment that where they can fail safely, and they can safely ask questions and they're not there's not an area that you're fearful of. If I ask questions, that's not gonna look good, right? You've got to work to be able to help create that environment where, where the individual or individuals can can feel that they can ask a question, and they're not going to get chastised for they should know that answer. Because we're not all going to know that answer and nor should know Should we had all the time, but we've got to be able to understand where to get that answer. And so being able to do that, and the other thing that that's important is helping to helping the mentee understand that it's okay to fail safely. And that's, that's an important environment to to create, that I feel that every engineer should have obviously much more those early on in their careers, then then you wouldn't necessarily need a more a more senior level. But, you know, one of my mentors very early on in my career said, You can't learn the outbreak. And that is true, you, you can't, perfection doesn't exist, nor should it exist in what we've tried to do, because then we would never learn and that that's the most important be able to do you got to be able to make mistakes, but you have to learn from them and be able to bounce back. And yeah,
Aaron Moncur:I love that you brought up breaking things. We just just had an event actually here yesterday and one of the presenters, Roger libretto, former podcast guest himself talked about the importance of breaking things. It's great to know how to build things. But sometimes it can be just as important to learn how to break things and learn from them. Yeah,
Dion Lopes:without a doubt, and that is extremely important. And you've got to be able to do that safely. And understand and have an organization that embraces that. Yeah. Well,
Aaron Moncur:let me take a very short break here and share with the listeners that the being an editor podcast is brought to you by pipeline design and engineering where we don't do pipelines. But we do help companies who commercialize hard good products that are complex or difficult to manufacture. We do this by developing advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines and custom fixtures complemented with product design, and r&d services. You can learn more at Team pipeline.us. Today, we have the privilege of speaking with Deon Lopes, again, how do you evaluate the potential impact of new technologies in your field? You know, are there some criteria that you use to decide whether or not to adopt new technologies?
Dion Lopes:So first of all, you have to understand, is there a need for the technology? Right? Is it? Is it something that's, that's new, that's different that hey, we we want to try this? Or is it something that, that there's there's a need for in need in terms of Okay, is it is it an ergonomic need is you need a more stable process to remove operator variability. So you go semi automated or automated, you know, it's the whole make versus buy decision, right? Do we want to, or are the costs from our vendors prohibitive where if we brought it in and gain the expertise, it would be, it would be we'd have more control of it more of an understanding of it more in control our costs, to be able to bring it in and then assess that. And you know, the the make versus buy decision, understanding if, if you have the technical knowledge in house or if you have to hire it, you want to get individuals that are, that are high potential that you can have that train and learn with industry experts, and and understand that, and then be able to invest in bringing that in house. And then as you're doing that, as you're making those, you know, make versus buy decision, you always have to assess, you know, the cost, the schedule, the resources that are needed, in order to make this new technology or process come to fruition. And is it the right time to be able to do that? Or are we in a technical crunch where we've got to be able to do it in house? Because all you know, the proprietary nature of it is in house and we've got to be able to do it or is it something that, hey, we're having frustrations with vendors, and we have to bring it out and bring it in, or hey, we'd love to bring it in. But we just do not have the bandwidth or the time and we've got a critical product coming down the pike. So we've got coming down the pipe. So we've got to, you know, we'd rather bring in a vendor to that. So it's a lot of those questions brilliantly
Aaron Moncur:answered. It makes me think of a quote that I heard a little while ago, I can't remember who it was that said this, but the quote was, just because you bought a book doesn't mean you bought the time to read that book. And I think it's a very similar sentiment. Just because you purchased a new technology or brought in a new technology doesn't necessarily mean that you purchased the time to learn how to use that technology, support that technology. Or maybe a better way to put it is if you're going to purchase a new technology, make sure that you also have allocated time to get up to speed, learn how to use it, learn how to support it, train people, all of those things, because that's the I'm thinking of PDM right now we implement had PDM at our company a few years back, and oh, my goodness, it. I thought PDM itself was expensive, but it was not nearly as expensive as implementing PDM. And training people on it.
Dion Lopes:Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz if you don't, if you don't invest, you know, if you're going to make the investment to bring in, you know, the capital, let's say, a piece of equipment and technology, right, but you're not going to invest the people the time the the resources, and you know, and people, if you will, to gain that knowledge, you basically just bought a large capital paperweight? That's a good way to put it. And I think we've all we've all been around that. And I think that's, you know, that, you know, is obviously frustrating from an organizational standpoint, right? Because you're, you're dumping capital in on things we're never going to use. But also, you know, from an engineering standpoint, if we've got things that that we can use that to help processes, develop, or characterize or implement new processes, or try new processes out, you want to if you're going to invest the money, you've got to invest the time and the resources to bring it to fruition.
Aaron Moncur:Absolutely. Well said. What are I mean, given the experience that you have in in manufacturing and operations, what are some of the most important skills that you think are required for a manufacturing engineer, or even a mechanical engineer, process engineer that is heavily involved in manufacturing in today's fast evolving medical device world.
Dion Lopes:So one of the things for me is the willingness to learn, willingness to ask for help, and the ability to make mistakes, but bounce back from right, everybody's going to make them but it's, it's how you bounce back from them how you recover, that, that's critical, right? And those those characteristics need to be present, as we are bringing in and growing the engineering fields and bringing in new hires into engineering, we've got to be able to do that, you know, the I've always low the term, it's not my job. I've always been one that likes to wear multiple hats, to learn and to get stuff done and to work with others and to get new perspectives. Right. On other things, and you know, you may have one way to do it, but others who have more experience may have tried that, and it didn't work. And they can help teach you that and help you understand that that's that's not the way to go. But being able to, to wear the multiple hats to be able to make an impact. And that's much more feasible in smaller organizations that it is in in much larger corporate organizations. But the ability to be able to do that to learn to ask for help, and to make but bounce back from mistakes. Is I feel as critical. Speaking
Aaron Moncur:of making and bouncing back from mistakes, how do you balance the need? Or do you have any advice on how to balance the need for innovation, in which failure is a part of the process and expected it's going to happen with the stringent requirements for quality and compliance in the medical device industry where failure is a very much not accepted?
Dion Lopes:So I think what I think we need to understand like in a, what we mean by innovation, right? Like, if we're looking at it, and it's want to make sure I understand your question clear, like innovation, like a new piece of equipment, or a new process and new technologies that that was, so So I look at that. And we talked a little bit about that earlier, right? You know, foundationally, when you set up something new, you have to understand what it can do and why it does what it does. And if what you're asking it can do it can do that, right? If you're bringing a piece of equipment that you need a tight tolerance on, and that piece of equipment cannot hold that tight tolerance. It's not the right piece of equipment. But you need to understand that if you're designing a piece of equipment or you know, bringing in a piece of capital, the new technology and so forth, that you need to foundationally and fundamentally understand, understand the equipment under we talked about, you know, levers and buttons earlier, but that that's what you'd need to be able to do is to be able to understand that and and bring that in to it but it's all about the the risk of the process on on who the ultimate customer is in med device. It's patience, right? The patients don't care what technology right that they they don't care if we laser cut versus waterjet. It's not important to them. Are we giving them something that's safe? That's up to patients that's reliable, that's what they care about. That's what the doctors care about. They're not concerned about the technology, if if we can put in technologies that can give that to the doctors and the patients, and what I mean by, you know, the doctors aren't concerned about technologies, you know, what's important to them as the outcome of the patient, we could explain to them new technologies and physicians and stuff always like to understand, you know, new products and new things that are being done. But ultimately, they're going to look for products that are safe and efficacious as our as our the patients. And the more we can make products like that, that, that we have good clinical data for. And we can use processes that we fully characterize and are reliable and stable, that that's the most important. Yeah,
Aaron Moncur:Absolutely. Can you think of a, an experience where a project where you had to significantly alter your approach due to some kind of unforeseen challenge and how you and your team reacted to that.
Dion Lopes:So when, when I was doing some, some work in China, I lived in China for three years, we were having an issue with, with a couple of pieces of equipment that just weren't getting completed by the contract manufacturer, and a couple of us were called in to help move along the process help, you know, complete, complete the site acceptance to the factory acceptance testing, so we could get it to to our, our assembler. And what we thought we're going in was to help, you know, understand the schedule help remove hurdles and roadblocks. When we got there, what it truly was, there were technical challenges, that we weren't even sure if the the vendor wasn't even sure if you could make it work. And do what we were asking and what we had specified the equipment to do. So we we quickly had to change gears from Alright, how are we managing schedule, and removing hurdles so that we can get this piece of equipment so we get the product built and equipment qualified, and so forth. So all right now we've got technical hurdles, and technical challenges that we've got to get through to make sure the equipment can even do what we want it to do so. So that scope of tree triage changed into a much more technical base than than just a schedule, helping, reading and helping remove hurdles helping drive and partner with the vendor on on that aspect.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, and how did you handle that? Did you have to bring in people from your team who had that technical expertise? Or were you able to address some of those concerns directly yourself.
Dion Lopes:So I partnered with another individual. And we also had members from the team in the US that we got on the calls and worked closely, myself and the other team member that were out in China, we had the team give us an understanding of what the equipment needed to do and why and what some of the challenges were and what some of the critical aspects of the process were. And then we're able to go and help troubleshoot and identify, you know, areas of risk and concern. And then we brought the team in, and we and we we did it just with phone calls stuff. We didn't have to fly anybody over at that time. And we were able to together partner because in the end, I emphasize that partner with the equipment manufacturer to help solve the problem and get the equipment finish, get factory testing done and get it, get it on site.
Aaron Moncur:Wonderful. And at the end of the day was the solution, helping the vendor overcome these technical hurdles, or relaxing some of the technical specifications of the machine or a combination of both.
Dion Lopes:It was pretty much all helping the vendor address the technical hurdles, because of the complexity of what the equipment had to do with the medical device it was making there. There wasn't much room for further loosening, loosening any requirements.
Aaron Moncur:Got it. Okay. Well, great example. Thank you for sharing that. All right, well, I think we're getting towards the end here. I have this personal mission that I've given myself over the past six months or so to accelerate the speed of engineering to improve the human experience. And I look around us, right and pretty much everything around us exists because of engineering and engineers, right? The fans that keep us cool. The TV's on which were entertained the phones we used to communicate stoves, roads, plumbing, you know, all these things were developed by engineers. And I think to myself, If we could only increase the speed of engineering by by 5%, you know, what would that mean to the human experience? So I've been asking this question lately, towards the end of My podcast interviews, what what is one thing that that you have done or that you have found to be effective in accelerating the speed of engineering?
Dion Lopes:I think one of the things that that happens in engineering, whether it's product or process, it's data overload. And you need being able to understand how much data is enough data to make an informed decision that is risk base. Right? A lot of times you'll have analysis paralysis, where you're, you're just gathering data and you can't make a decision. And you've got to keep gathering more data in order to get just that increased and continue to increase level of confidence, rather than taking a look at what you have assessing risk, looking at risk based decision making, and making the call on the path to go forward because not making a call is worse than making a call having it not be the correct call, but then quickly adjusting and getting back on track. So that's, that's kind of one of the things that I would have a watch out, his data is good. You always need data, you need data to make informed decisions. But you need to understand and to avoid data paralysis, where you get so much data that it just bogs you down, and it really makes it harder to make a decision.
Aaron Moncur:I love that sometimes Done is better than perfect, right is what I hear you saying here. I remember, in my first internship, when I was still in college, my boss at the time was telling me about when he was interviewed for this position in the company. And he was telling me how he told the president of the company who was interviewing him, you know, I, I'm not afraid to make a decision, it might not always be the right decision. But I'm not afraid to make a decision. And I can do that. And I thought to myself at the time, why would you say that? I might not always make the right decision. That sounds like a terrible thing to say in an interview. But the older I've gotten, the more I've realized that there's so much value in just being able to make a call and take some action and do something, even if it's not the right thing, you start doing something, and you learn pretty quickly if it's the right thing or not. And if it's not, then like you said, you course correct, and eventually find the right thing. Whereas if you don't know how to make that decision, and it's analysis paralysis, you could go on indefinitely, just doing nothing, right, not making any progress.
Dion Lopes:And that's, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about about leadership, Ray and mentoring and, you know, things that I try to do in some of my, my, my pillars to be able to properly, you know, be a mentor, as well as be mentored. And to me, as a leader, you know, one of the things that I always make sure that I understand is the trenches that that my team live in, right now to be able to understand those trenches, so that you can help them work through them and get out of them and get to whatever the outcome is a product, the process, fixture engage whatever that be. But what you have to be able to do is help your team understand that they are empowered and accountable to act, right. So you know, your team is your team member, your team is empowered to to make a decision, okay, it could be the wrong decision, right? Sometimes that will happen, right? Sometimes that decision will be more critical than others. And so that's, you know, that's where leadership comes in, to help provide that guidance. But you have to be able to empower your team so that they understand that they are truly accountable. And that they have, they're in that position to be able to make those calls and go forward. Because if not in, you're constantly micromanaging. And then you really don't need that team member. You just do it all yourself. And that's that's not the intent. That's not how you grow an organization or a team.
Aaron Moncur:There's another quote that I can't remember who said, but it's hanging on my wall in my office, and the quote says, When in doubt, assume your right decisiveness is productive. And I always thought that was that was so great. It's a little tongue in cheek, but there's also a lot of truth and wisdom in that. All right. Well, Deanna, I think well, we'll wrap things up here. Thank you so much for being on the show. What a pleasure. It has been to talk with you and learn about your background and hear about some of the engineering and manufacturing insights that you've been able to share with the engineers listening to this episode. How can people get in touch with you?
Dion Lopes:I'm on LinkedIn, my contact information is on there. So anyone that would like to reach out, please feel free to message me on LinkedIn, my emails there. I look forward to reaching out to individuals contact me and to continue the network. I can get guidance and be able to provide guidance, right? I can help teach others but it's also really important for me to learn.
Aaron Moncur:Wonderful. All right. Well, thank you again so much, Dion.
Dion Lopes:Thank you appreciate it.
Aaron Moncur:I'm Aaron Moncure founder of pipeline design and engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please share the episode. To learn how your team can leverage our team's expertise developing advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines and custom fixtures complemented with product design and r&d services. Visit us at Team pipeline.us. To join a vibrant community of engineers online, visit the wave dot engineer Thank you for listening
