1cargarage
Well-known member
Hello boys and girls of Garage Journal,
A close friend of mine works on high tech and very expensive military gear (e.g. sonar systems on carriers, communications systems on Blackhawk helicopters, etc.). Consequently, his tools and toolbox must assume extreme organization and cleanliness. All of his drawers must be shadowed (think foam cut drawer organizers), and all of his tools must be engraved with his initials and the last 4 digits of his social security number. On certain projects he even has to clean his tools with ethanol, removing all oil and dirt due to the sensitive nature of the gear. He is free to buy/have/use any brand or quantity of tools he wants, but a complete inventory of his entire tool set is kept by his employer (government contractor) and he is obligated to update it whenever he gets new tools or discards or takes home old tools.
Here is an idea of what every one of his drawers must look like:
The underlying idea behind this extreme regulation is unequivocal accountability in the event of a catastrophe. He has told me stories of former coworkers who lost their jobs because a socket or small tool was found in a piece of gear that could have led to serious damage. In other cases, guys have been fired because they misplaced a tool that ended up on the flight deck of a carrier and thus could have been sucked into a fighter jet's engine or something along those lines.
Do any of you work under similar regulation or simply choose to keep your tools and box this obsessively clean and organized? If so, please share pictures and tell us what you do. Thanks!
A close friend of mine works on high tech and very expensive military gear (e.g. sonar systems on carriers, communications systems on Blackhawk helicopters, etc.). Consequently, his tools and toolbox must assume extreme organization and cleanliness. All of his drawers must be shadowed (think foam cut drawer organizers), and all of his tools must be engraved with his initials and the last 4 digits of his social security number. On certain projects he even has to clean his tools with ethanol, removing all oil and dirt due to the sensitive nature of the gear. He is free to buy/have/use any brand or quantity of tools he wants, but a complete inventory of his entire tool set is kept by his employer (government contractor) and he is obligated to update it whenever he gets new tools or discards or takes home old tools.
Here is an idea of what every one of his drawers must look like:
The underlying idea behind this extreme regulation is unequivocal accountability in the event of a catastrophe. He has told me stories of former coworkers who lost their jobs because a socket or small tool was found in a piece of gear that could have led to serious damage. In other cases, guys have been fired because they misplaced a tool that ended up on the flight deck of a carrier and thus could have been sucked into a fighter jet's engine or something along those lines.
Do any of you work under similar regulation or simply choose to keep your tools and box this obsessively clean and organized? If so, please share pictures and tell us what you do. Thanks!
