"I Wan'na Be Like You": Duderstadt

Above: The Otto Bock facade (Duderstadt).

This won't be a lengthy post, but Otto Bock couldn't fit neatly into its own category, so it gets its own. Our visit to Otto Bock was probably one of my favorite program activities aside from seeing a surgery. I've only been inside a production site one time, and I can't even remember what they were making - circuits and electronics, I think. This time, we got a factory tour of something I actually cared about.

I've done some work on designing implants, and my boss would periodically drop in to correct some of my dimensions so that the machinery would be capable of producing the part. I always sort of thought that things just appeared out of thin air once they got designed in a computer-aided design (CAD) program, that basically anything was possible, and I forgot about the fact that something or someone has to produce your part eventually. So, seeing the techniques and machines that Otto Bock used was of particular interest. It's not the "coolest" aspect of design, but it's something that should be considered. I wish I could have better seen how things were physically constructed, but the overview was fantastic.

We also got an idea of how things were moved around the factory and essentially sent out to customers and inventoried. The company I was working at during this past summer was small enough that they didn't need an automated system, just someone to keep a record in the computer every time parts went out. But Otto Bock...Otto Bock needed a staggering amount of space to do the same, kept tidy by The System (I almost asked if they'd named it). Not really sure how much detail I'm allowed to share, but let's just say that it's not surprising that they had to basically outsource this task to a company that designed The System. I wonder at what point they decided they needed it. Also, not that we'd ever get the chance, but we decided that the room with all the conveyor belts and various levels would have made for a great paintball game.

I'm not really sure where my career will take me. I suppose it's not even fair to assume that I'll end up in the biomedical engineering industry at all; there's a lot of time between now and then. However, I've wanted to work in prosthetic design for some time, or possibly in artificial organs. Anyway, I couldn't help but wonder about the design process and how many people they have assigned to each project, how the projects get assigned, how many prototypes they go through, what their equivalent of the FDA is...I probably missed a little of this when the pleuropneumonia started catching up with me and directed my attention elsewhere. But Otto Bock kept that flame going and reminded me that a huge number of people will require something of the BME industry at some point in their lives.

"I wanna be like you

I wanna walk like you

Talk like you, too"

- "I wan'na be like you", The Jungle Book