Ad: “When I was sixteen years old and after finishing my technical school, I started working at Machinefabriek Vos in Sliedrecht. In the beginning I did all kinds of things: turner, milling, I became a conventional cutter and later, as a machine operator, I started working with a CNC milling machine.
Dieseko
“From 1985,” Ad continues, “we worked with a few people almost exclusively on jobs for Dieseko. Because they wanted their own machine factory in 1995, I went over with a colleague to help set up that factory. By then we had already been working with the CNC machines for a while: that wasn’t a big transition for me. I have always been interested in computers: moreover, with the help of a CNC machine, the work goes much faster and more accurate. Besides, traditional handwork is still very common!”
Gearboxes
Ad: “We started here with seven people. There are still seven of us, two of us from the beginning! It was a fun time: my colleague and I knew exactly what to do. We set up the factory and got our five new colleagues started. We make parts for Dieseko: gearboxes for the smaller vibratory blocks, and parts for those vibratory blocks. It’s a regular production. The basis is the same, the difference is in the dimensions.”
Precise work
“It’s not serial work,” Ad explains. “A maximum of three copies: all productions look alike, but everything is different! That’s also the nice thing about this work: you perform all the operations that you can as a CNC machine operator. Milling, drilling, boring and thread tapping/milling. It is very precise work. It often comes down to a tolerance of 0.02 millimeter! I work between three and five days on a product.”
Team
Ad: “Everyone on the team knows their job. The welder-construction worker welds the individual parts together. When they come back adapted, clean, and primed, my fellow operator or I get to work on them. I have a lot of freedom and responsibility: based on drawings or instructions, I make the programming for the CNC myself. Experience is very valuable! As a team we complement each other, and the atmosphere is great! There is little turnover: in October I will be the first to retire!”
Short lines
“Dieseko is a pleasant company, with short lines of communication. We have grown enormously over the years, yet the mutual contact has remained easy and natural. Our slogan ‘Founding the Future’ really appeals to me: it seems very important that we think about the future and that things change. I’m working on it myself, with solar panels. And I go to work every day – with a big smile – on my bicycle!”
