Mistakes made lessons' learned. (Engineer).

In his career, Herb Adams has pretty much done it all, and made mistakes along the way, Those stumbles, he claims, not only helped him grow, they are essential to the proper development of individuals, teams, and organizations.

Besides being something of a mythic character to Pontiac Trans-Am owners (see box, Mistakes Along the Way"), Herb Adams is an engineer at American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM; Detroit, MI). There, he is deeply involved in the company's I-Ride program, designing and developing independent suspension systems that bolt in place of live axles on existing light trucks and SUVs. Yet his experience and attitude are trusted commodities in an industry that has seemingly put its collective faith in younger employees. "There is a definite benefit to having 'gray hairs' in the organization," says Ron Schoenbach, director, Chassis Engineering at AAM. "They don't have all of the answers, but they can help guide some of the younger engineers in the right direction." It doesn't hurt, Schoenbach adds, when that mentor isn't someone who has been around so long that they think they have seen and done it all. "You need a visionary," he says, "a person with a 'can-do' attitude." A person like Herb Adams

A New Approach

Developing I-Ride is a study in fast, get-it-done teamwork and development. Realizing that Ford's across-the-board application of independent rear suspensions (IRSs) on SUVs locked it into a higher cost structure and reduced differentiation of models, Adams put together a team charged with investigating the creation of a bolt-in IRSn module for live axle vehicles, one that requires no modifications to the floor pan. The team consisted of Adams, his boss, Jim Downs, two finite element analysis (FEA) people, two computer-aided design (CAD) people, and two people from the shop. "We shared resources with our Advanced Axle and Rear-Steer groups, and traded things back and forth as needed."

Team interactions were comparatively ad hoc, what Adams describes as "Come over to my pod and tell me what you think" sessions that would happen during the development. "That kind of stuff," he explains, "draws on the practical experience of the people working on the project."

But what about things like CAD and FEA? How do they fit into this free-wheeling design process? Says Adams, "They're tools that you have to learn to use correctly, just like you learned to use a drawing board," (Adams does admit to occasionally using a drawing board), "though in many instances it's faster to study the problem, design the part in the shop, and then transfer that to the model." The information gained from this quick development process is used to create simulations, and quickly refine the model. Something, Adams admits, "that wouldn't be possible if you had all of the hours in the world with a drawing board and calculator."

And advanced technology notwithstanding, it's worth noting that the first I-Ride module--which underwent changes and further development before it became an actual product--was actually manufactured on a lathe and mill in Jim Downs' garage.

Experience Matters

This approach was refined during Adams' racing days, but draws upon a deeper well of experience. One that, he feels, often is overlooked. "You learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes," he says. "If you're not pushing the boundaries, you're not making mistakes. And if you're not making mistakes, you're not learning." Cognizant of the fact that corporations are risk-averse, Adams admits that turning engineers loose without any guidance is self-defeating. He suggests pairing new recruits with more experienced hands, while making sure there's room for them to grow. "It's important to have someone guide you along the way," he says, "who is flexible enough to let you make some mistakes as you proceed." As Adams sees it, this lets the new recruit-who may be an experienced engineer in a new position, or a recent college graduate-gain experience without threatening the successful completion a project, or putting a company in financial jeopardy.

"There are two ways to approach a project," he says. "You can be very exact, very precise, and dead-perfect the first time. Or you build it, test it, and redesign it. Usually it takes a combination of the two approaches to be successful, but you often learn much, much more the second way." Adams also believes it is necessary to build a team made up of younger and older members who come from more than one discipline, and create an atmosphere in which each member is willing to learn from the others. In addition, bureaucracy must to be minimized to allow the team to focus on its task, and make the most out of its inevitable mistakes. "If you're working on a brand new product," Adams says, "you'd better get used to the fact that you'll need to go through four or five iterations before you get something good out of it," but that this learning curve means, "it's easier to zero-in on the correct answer the next time around." It's a lesson he learned on the race track. "Good engineering is like racing," Adams says. " Don't talk about it. Do it. Because they're not going to delay the race for you."

RELATED ARTICLE: Mistakes Along the Way

Best known as a father of the Pontiac Trans-Am and the division's Super Duty V8, Herb Adams has a fondness far racing. While at Pontiac, he and his engineering team wanted to go racing, but knew their bosses would never stand for-or fund-an effort built around Pontiac's pony car. Undaunted, legend has it that they took Mrs. Adams' 80,000-mile 1964 Pontiac Tempest, de-straked the 389-in. (3) motor, and brought the car up to race spec. It was entered in the opening round of the Sports Car Club of America's 1971 Trans-Am championship to howls of laughter from better funded competitors with newer vehicles. Unable to qualify, the car was allowed to start from the back of the pack, whereupon it moved through the field, and was running second behind eventual winner. Mark Donahue's factory-supported Penske Racing AMC Javelin when the engine quit. The publicity that followed the unfunded, after-hours racers was enormous, as were the repercussions. In short order, and reportedly with some "help" from Roger Penske, the project was shut down by Pontiac's chief engineer.

This wasn't Adams' only defeat. His X-4-powered small car program - one of as many as 19 small car research programs coursing through GM in the late 1960s and early 1970s-fell afoul of EdCole's drive to make GM an all-Wankel car company. Both Adams and the program-GM's second X-4 engine design (Charles Kettering built the first in the 1930s)-were transferred to GM's Tech Center where it continued development as a two-stroke diesel before its eventual cancellation. Caught in the post-John DeLorean backwash (Adams was seen as one of DeLorean's guys), he joined DeLorean's brother Jack to design vehicles for Grand Prix of America a go-kart racing venture that quickly went bust.

Next came a series of eight matched cars commissioned by Pontiac for an International Race of Champions-style racing series that never got off the ground. This work, however, catapulted Adams into the automotive aftermarket with VSE, and set The stage for Adams and his son to begin building AC Cobra replicas in California. "Then my son decided he wanted a chance to run that business himself, and I got a job offer from AAM," says Adams. He may have been fortunate to not be asked to work on John DeLorean's failed sports car project, but that hasn't turned Adams off to automaking. The word on the street suggests he may produce a vehicle of his own design once his time is up at AAM. When asked about the prospect, all Adams did was smile as he covered up the stunning red car in the photo on his cubicle wall.