Having our own shop changed the dynamics of running Imagination Corporation in a big way. Now we could invest in bigger, non-portable tools at last. New welding machines and a hand held plasma cutter were among the first tools we bought. Every tool got a permanent home and we were truly organized at long last. After working out of a small garage, trailers and on customers sites for decades, the idea of working in a spacious shop was all brand new.
We built workbenches along with tool and material storage racks to keep everything organized. Sturdy workbenches and a heavy duty welding table were also early items to be done. The shop lighting was state of the art and the ceilings were high enough to build anything we could transport.
Having a shop meant we could hire employees full time. Work could be done in an orderly fashion, not controlled by what the weather was going to do that day. The new shop also meant we could build our projects largely at home. We had to devise ways to allow us to easily lift, transport and install on site when we shipped them. We could work much more efficiently. Best of all the new shop allowed us to sleep in our own beds much more often rather than living out of a suitcase while we worked at a site far from home. Having a shiny new shop of our very own was amazing!
In the next years we would add robotic tools to our way of doing things. These awesome tools took the drudgery out of many tasks while still allowing us to do our favourite parts by hand, thus keeping the magic intact. We also got very good at building very large and heavy features in manageable pieces so we could move them in the shop and transport them to our customers around the world.
All through the past twenty-five years our strength has been our people. It has been a most excellent adventure. We look forward to the next twenty-five years with great anticipation!
