Background:
When I joined the team, Peloton had been manufacturing their flagship Bike at limited factories, and they were looking to expand their manufacturing sites. A huge component of enabling that expansion was to build out documentation of the Bike so a new site would understand how to manufacture and assemble it.

Problem Statement:
I was directed to develop a full GD&T drawing package of the Peloton Bike. Some limited drawings of the Bike made by the original contract manufacturer were provided to me to use as reference, but they were not comprehensive in number (with only a few major parts defined) nor in definition (with lackluster GD&T definition in even the existing drawings).

Project Details:
Role: primary mechanical drafting engineer
Team: mechanical drafting manager (provided guidance on difficult drawings) + me
Timeline: 11 months (2019-2020)

Objectives + Outcomes:
My primary project at Peloton, and the reason I was initially brought onto the team, was to build a full set of drawings for every part in the Bike, complete with GD&T definition.
I finished the drawing package in early 2020 with a solid understanding of datums and the manufacturing methods of a wide variety of parts that had to be cast, molded, dipped, or formed out of sheet metal and tubing, as well as corresponding top-level assemblies.

Approach/Methods
Engineering documentation: GD&T
Manufacturing: Understand how a part is made in order to appropriately define datums, positions, and tolerances

Highlights:
This project was my first foray into GD&T, which I had not and have not seen used at other smaller startups due to difficulty in upholding that standard in manufacturing. However, in 2019, Peloton was an established company on the cusp of IPO–in November of that year, it acquired one of its manufacturing sites. Compared to other smaller startups, the company’s size, stature, and, ultimately, acquisition relationship gave the engineering team the opportunity to press the contract manufacturer on their deliverables.