of having to ask about it, they can
just interject. We’ve seen that hap-
pen. And we mix it up so that it’s not
just hydraulics people sitting next
to other hydraulics people. We’ll
have hydraulic system engineering
next to connector system engineer-
ing next to electromechanical sys-
tem engineering.”
And in an even more interest-
ing nod to how global the busi-
ness is, Donaldson said there was
also a conscious effort in terms of
where the engineers come from.
“We speak roughly 14 languag-
es in this building,” he said. “We
have Swedes, Italians, Germans,
Brazilians, Indians — it’s a very
international team. That’s by design
so you get outside ideas.
“If you have a team of Americans,
they’ll think like Americans. You add
some Europeans, and all of a sudden
you get more insight and knowledge
about designing in markets where
the price of fuel is $7 per gallon.
They’ve got different drivers and dif-
ferent ideas.
“What really makes our customers excited is, say you’ve got an
engineering team for an OEM in
Iowa. They’re going to design a
piece of equipment here and have
it manufactured in India or China.
We have the ability to interface with
them globally with the same processes, the same test makes and the
same equipment.
“As we’re helping them design their
motion solution, we’re also working
on the logistics and supply chain
part of it for India and China. Then
when we roll it out, we’ve got the
same technical resources, the same
engineering center processes and
procedures around the world. And
that’s where the global footprint of
the business development side of the
systems engineering centers really
comes into play.”
At the heart of the Systems
Engineering Center in Elk Grove
INDUSTRY NEWS
Village is the shop area, which
will cover approximately 37,000
sq.ft. when the refurbishing is complete. “When you compare this to
Lincolnshire, it’s just a huge step forward,” said Donaldson. “Over there,
we had one bay and about 2200 sq.ft.
Here we have 37,000 sq.ft. and we’ll
officially have eight bays that can
each fit a Class 8 vehicle. The bays
are actually pretty long, so it’s possible in some cases to have more than
one piece of equipment in each bay.
“The center is primarily an aisle,
but if needed, we could use that,
too. The only real limitation we have
is the width of the door, which is
about 20 ft.”
The shop floor incorporates a range
of instrument, testing and validation
technologies. These include hydrau-
lic test stands, hot and cold tem-
perature chambers, a small machine
shop capable of turning out one-off
parts and even a full-size commercial
vehicle chassis, complete with diesel
