Let’s get your machine working.
Mechanical Design • Analysis • Controls • Failure Investigation
Mechanical + industrial controls services
Failure Analysis
Material failure
Root cause analysis
Design remediations
On-site consultation
Mechanical Design
Turnkey design
CAD and drafting
Prototyping
Production planning
Analysis and Testing
Motion analysis
Stress + FEA analysis
On-site data collection
Instrumentation setup
Industrial Controls
Turnkey design
PLC programming
Troubleshooting
Factory + site testing
About
Third Shift Engineering is a Boston-based solo consulting business by Mike Reilly.
Mike has a decade of experience in the amusement park and robotics industries.
He has logged hours in every stage of the production process, from blue-sky design, to structural analysis deep-dives, to government compliance reviews to on-site PLC commissioning.
Contact
Brand new designs and upgrades.
Broken welds and strange noises.
A PLC without a programmer.
Let us take a crack at it.
Please fill out the form with your project details, and we will respond within 24 hours.
You can also email mike@thirdshiftengineering.com
Values
Safety
We do not take on jobs outside of our competency.
We do not prioritize schedule, budget, or business over human safety.
We maintain complete and transparent risk assessments.
We always defer to the ANSI B11.1 and ISO 12100 standard suites for hazard mitigations.
Due diligence and quality
We do not guess - we reference published literature whenever possible and state our assumptions and methods clearly.
We are thorough in our communications and scientific in our problem solving.
We only publish peer-review quality reports in detail and accountability.
Timeliness and deliverables
We send deliverables on-time - reports, designs, drawings, updates.
Delays, if unavoidable, are explained in detail, as soon as possible, and with a mitigation plan in place.
All deliverables are revision controlled and archived indefinitely at the client’s discretion.
Pricing
Initial consultation (typically 1 hour) - Free
Project review, proposal, and quoting - Free
Site visits - $500 / day + Travel
One-off part designs (CAD + drafting), small assemblies, or mechanical analysis - $300 ~ $2000 depending on complexity
Large design projects (mechanical assemblies, control systems, test fixtures) - typically $1000 - $10000 depending on complexity
Zero-minimum hourly rate - $150 / hour
Long-term projects, bulk hourly rate - Discounts will vary by project lengths.
Failure analysis and investigation - Total cost will vary depending on needs for 3rd party testing, expert consultations, problem complexity, and travel.
Work excerpts
Structural load cell for robotic arm
Principal inventor for a novel weight measuring device for a robot arm end effector.
Developed for robotic technology company XYZ Robotics, this device provides protection to a load cell from off-axis forces while allowing it to take sensitive weight measurements (~3 gram accuracy) in its measurement axis.
US Patent 11338447B2 - Link
Theme park site work
Skid testing for remote operated AGV safety validation
[Redacted for client privacy]
Overspeed brake replacement, realignment, and safety testing for a ride vehicle lift.
Electrical / control system rework for indoor tracked ride
[Redacted for client privacy]
Electrical panel rework for indoor tracked ride
Mechanical Analysis
Finite element analysis of an elastic vehicle bumper to characterize deceleration rates during a collision between two tracked vehicles.
Mechanical analysis and basic geometry modeling for a complex cantilever door linkage assembly.