MASTERS OF MANUFACTURING: James B. Bryan

Manufacturing Engineering, Jul 2007 by Lorincz, Jim

This is the sixth annual installment in an article series we call Masters of Manufacturing. In these articles, Manufacturing Engineering magazine honors a distinguished figure in manufacturing technology. By doing so, we hope to remind readers that a career of great achievement in manufacturing is still possible.

James B. Bryan has been called "the founding father of modern precision engineering". He was honored by the European Society for Precision Engineering (euspen) in 2000 for "his tireless promotion of precision engineering philosophies, principles, innovations, practices, and standards through design, research, and teaching." A registered mechanical engineer in the State of California since 1954 (No. 10970, he proudly notes), Bryan began working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1955, under Nobel laureate and founding director, Ernest O. Lawrence. By the time he retired in 1986, Bryan was chief of metrology with contributions to precision engineering so diverse that one colleague has commented that picking the most notable one would depend upon whom you asked. Another colleague (Ben Taylor of Renishaw) called Jim "the world's most practical purist."

While at Lawrence Livermore, Bryan studied the principles that enabled him and his team to design and build an ultraprecise 120-ton (190 t), 96'' (2-4-m) horizontal diamond turning machine and, as a result, advanced engineers' understanding of how to control variables in automatic CNC machining. Bryan was the recipient of a US patent for the Telescoping Magnetic Ball Bar Test Gage in 1986. It was commercialized, principally by Renishaw Inc., under license, and is used all over the world to profile the accuracy of CNC machine tools. He has been author and co-author of more than 50 papers on precision machining and quality, and author and co-author of standards that have been developed by ASME for Roundness, Flatness, Temperature and Humidity, Axes of Rotation, Surface Finish, NC milling machines (1992) and NC lathes and turning centers (2000). In 1977, he received the Society of Manufacturing Engineers' SME Research Medal for advancing the science of measurement through his innovative work in precision engineering. Since retiring, Bryan has headed his own consulting firm, Bryan Associates (Pleasanton, CA), and in 2006 was awarded a patent for the Slow Tool Servo (as compared to the Fast Tool Servo).

Manufacturing Engineering: What in your early experiences prepared you for a career in precision engineering and metrology?

James B. Bryan: I grew up in Alameda, CA, across San Francisco Bay from San Francisco and have lived in the area my whole life. In 1944, 1 shipped out as an able-bodied seaman on a US Merchant Marine ship, which meant that at the age of seventeen I was able to pass a test on seamanship principles that I learned in the Alameda Sea Scouts. In the Merchant Marine, I was a wiper, oiler, Junior Engineer, Second Assistant Engineer Steam Vessels, and Third Engineer Diesel Vessels. As a machinist in the engine room, I became adept at making metal parts on a lathe for repairing and rebuilding valves, pumps, and anything else needed to keep that ship's engines running. After the war, I shipped out on merchant ships during the summers, and earned my degree in industrial engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1951. Before I joined the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in 1955, 1 had no experience or training in precision engineering.

I've had a sailboat since I was 11 years old and have had my 30' (9-m) sailboat, Venga, for the last 34 years. In Spanish Venga means "come along," and it wasn't uncommon for my wife, Edie, son, Bill, and daughter Susan and me to do just that and sail Venga on San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay all the way up to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a trip of more than two hundred miles, for two weeks at a time.

ME: What was it like working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory?

Bryan: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Ernest O. Lawrence was a place of challenge to the imagination and curiosity of its scientists and engineers. Though the primary work of the lab was physics, specifically nuclear physics, it was engineering that moved theory into the development of practical nuclear weapons. The laboratory's missions have broadened today to include prominent roles with DOE in energy, science, and the environment.

Early in my career at Livermore, I was challenged to improve the quality of our machined parts by a factor of ten, as well as our ability to measure such close tolerances. That level of tolerances was almost unknown at the time. At first, I didn't believe it was possible. I then found a book written in the 1920s by Dr. R.H. Rolt- head of the Metrology Division of NPL in England - about measurement techniques and theory that, like many of the ideas from the past, have great relevance to solving today's continuing quality manufacturing and metrology problems. One of the topics in the book was the measurement of gage blocks. Gage blocks were invented and patented by CE. Johansson in Sweden in 1901. They continue to be the basis for gaging techniques that are the foundation of modern Precision Engineering.