Assembly line for home products
Photo by Homa Appliances on Unsplash

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Understanding Software Assembly

Koan #52

Chris Kiess
Published in
3 min readJan 14, 2025

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Many years ago, in another life, another version of myself worked for Navistar International building diesel engines for Ford Motor Company. I worked the assembly line where every night it was the same job, the same thing, the same actions completed over and over.

After a short time of this, I took a job as a spare operator. It was a job not unlike a substitute teacher where you filled in for someone who didn’t show up to work. As a spare operator, I had the chance to learn and work every job on the assembly line so each night was a little different for me.

I learned the entire assembly line through working all of the positions. I eventually came to understand how the engines went together, what accounted for a bad build and was able to even work repair jobs to fix engines that had not been assembled properly or had defects. The spare operator position enabled me to become a better employee because I had a more holistic view of the engine assembly process.

Recently, I’ve taken the same approach with respect to software development, learning more about product management and the business end of my profession. I’ve done this through some intensive courses that have taken me deeper than any professional development I’ve tackled in the past. It’s been somewhat enlightening.

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Design Koans
Design Koans

Published in Design Koans

Design Koans is a weekly publication of short articles designed to provoke deeper thought on design issues and perhaps even wake you up.

Chris Kiess
Chris Kiess

Written by Chris Kiess

Healthcare User Experience Designer in the Greater Chicago area

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