Three weeks into startup at ConMet in Monroe, and I’m writing this from the airport on Saturday, waiting to head home.
I’ll be back this afternoon, in the office Monday morning to keep things moving, then right back to North Carolina Monday evening for one final week of full-on startup.
This hasn’t been a smooth ride—and that’s putting it lightly.
We’ve dealt with:
- Incorrectly manufactured gas valves
- Faulty sensors
- Bad VFD displays
- Short-shipped safety fencing
None of it catastrophic individually—but stack it together and it slows everything down fast.
Still, we hit a major milestone yesterday:
We painted our first part.
A little heavy on paint, but solid coverage and a clean cut line where it mattered. That’s the moment where a project stops being theoretical and proves itself.
This past week of power-up and testing was especially tough.
Trying to keep the customer aligned on schedule while actively helping drive the install is a balancing act on its own. Add in coordinating across trades and it gets real, fast:
- Working through wiring plans and debug with the electricians
- Integrating with the plumbing and paint supply crew
- Coordinating with a third-party robot programmer I brought in to help speed things up (that backfired—ended up with less experience than expected, so I jumped back in)
- All while the mechanical crew is still finishing install around us
That’s startup in the field—everything happening at once, and you’re in the middle of all of it.
Now it’s about finishing strong:
- Final commissioning of the oven
- PLC programming tweaks and cleanup
- Spray tuning and consistency
- Operator training
- Commissioning an automatic inkjet printer to mark part numbers on finished parts (working with another third-party tech on that next week)
It’s going to be a busy week.
The final install phase will be the automatic spray gun tip cleaner, which still needs to be designed and implemented. After that, we’ll wrap with follow-up training and final system handoff.
This is the part of the job most people never see—the long days, the problem solving, the constant adjustments.
This is where systems either come together… or don’t.
Close enough to see the finish line.
Now we finish it.