#018 – Product Design Engineer – Michael Beadle
Michael Beadle is a Product Designer at GoPro. He has worked as a supply base engineer for Apple, contributing to devices like the Apple watch. Mike has considerable experience in lean manufacturing and as a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) operator. In 2012, he spent half a year with the Flight of the Century team, which holds 5 Guinness world records for manned electric aircraft.
Mike is a graduate of Mechanical engineering from California State University Long Beach.
Connect with Michael Beadle via Linkedin.
Listen to the episode on iTunes.
Stream the episode below or by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as”.
Discussion timestamps:
02:52 – Where Mike is from, and what he studied in college.
04:06 – What interested Mike in engineering. Early experience with welding and metal fabrication.
05:05 – Going back to college for engineering.
06:03 – Talk about the Formulas SAE team at California State University-Long Beach.
07:52 – Working as a CNC programmer and operator. Designing for manufacture.
10:10 – Lean manufacturing at Boeing. Making tools to make the job easier.
11:53 – What is takt time?
12:46 – Talk about Flight of the Century. Building a high-performance electric aircraft.
15:58 – How Mike got to know Chip Yates and how he landed a spot with the team.
17:38 – Working at Honeywell. Turning tribal knowledge into documentation.
19:05 – Implementing material management tracking and statistically based buying. Just in time purchasing.
20:43 – The importance of applying statistics in product manufacturing.
22:24 – What makes Apple products so appealing? It’s all in the details.
23:36 – Apple products that Mike has worked on.
25:00 – What does a supply base engineer do?
26:48 – Advice when working overseas.
27:34 – Working at GoPro as a sustaining engineer and as a product designer.
29:54 – Where does Mike find inspiration? Digging deep with the “why”.
31:12 – Trends in manufacturing and skills for the future.
32:04 – Talk about additive manufacturing.
32:56 – Teamwork and leadership advice.
34:01 – Technologies that excite Mike.
35:05 – Advice for young engineers.
Episode related content:
Manufacturing the Steel Apple Watch casing:
Overview of the GoPro Hero4 Session:
Chip Yates talks about the Flight of the Century on the TEDX stage:
Follow Dima on Twitter and on Instagram.
Leave a review on iTunes.
Episode leading image via Apple Youtube video.
Stream the episode here:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS
