Louis,
You are quite correct, up to a point. True, you can make this tracking
system quite detailed. Whether you do so or not depends on your needs,
and your needs may not be the same as mine. Truthfully, the software
I developed (about 5 years ago), only tracks activity on a single design,
although results of several designs can be summarized together. Our needs
at the time were to track the number of electrical and mechanical changes
and their impact on schedule, the hours the designer put in the following
catagories: 1)design input, 2)placement, 3)manual routing, 4)documentation,
and 5)output, as well as cad system bugs and their impact on schedule.
The method of employment is rather simplistic (it hurts my ego to say...).
When a job is started, a file is "touch"ed (yes I am running unix) in a
hidden directory and given the name of the board. Then when the designer
logs out at night, a program call from his/her .logout file prompts him/her
for some very basic information. This is done through a series of menu's.
The user's responces are appended to the job file in a format which will
make extraction easy. In addition, a copy of that day's activity report is
sent via email to the design manager and any other interested party.
The summary report generator grabs the board file and runs an awk script
that totals up all the hours and produces a nicely formatted report.
easy.
Frankly, I wouldn't trust a cad company to build a really detailed tracking
system that could access such items as part availability etc. This data
may or may not be in your cad system. If it is not in your cad system, you
will have to find it elsewhere in the file system. Just where that is will
vary company by company.... and around here sometimes month by month as
system admin has free reign to move data around where ever their little cold
hearts desire.
IO is my biggest issue when writing code. If the data can be gotten to,
then you're in good shape, if not, the only thing left to do is use some
default value, which is basically the same as a guess. The problem your
cad company will have is establishing a pointer to the data it needs. I
doubt that everything you need is contained in your cad database. It would
be a real stretch to have such things as delivery dates and lead times in
your cad file. So your vendor has to find it. He/she will have to to that
for you, and every other person he/she sells software to.
Format of the ordering information (prices, availability, etc.) will also
vary company to company. This could really be a can of worms if you were
to try to design a system that could be used by everybody. So, I believe
that the best solution is to do it yourself. That way you don't have to
worry about format issues that don't pertain to you.
I believe it would be well worth employing someone, preferrably a pcb
designer, or former designer, that can write code in perl, c, or shell
scripting. That way the program will get written in a way that is most
useful to your designers, and is customized to your needs, as well as
your environment.
The software we are using is a c-shell script with some auxillary
awk scripts. It will be re-written early next year in perl, with some
added features.
Best regards,
Ken Barrett
Cisco Systems WBU
San Jose CA
[log in to unmask]
408.526.5625
> From [log in to unmask] Tue Nov 5 17:51:08 1996
> Resent-Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 19:43:07 -0800
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> Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 16:44:07 -0500
> From: [log in to unmask] (Louis Dallara)
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Tracking Software
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> Ken;
> First you have to define what kind of tracking
> you want to do.
> Possibles;
> 1-ECO's
> electrical changes
> mechanical changes
> simulation results
> component changes
> 2-Acounting "Like you mentioned"
> hours
> charge no's
> work description
> vacation/sick days
> 3-Data Base
> ee changes schematic
> me changes card outline
> pm change specification
> 4-Manufacturing
> Rev levels of artwork
> Part availablility from inventory
> Drill tape rev
> test set rev
> drawing's rev
> 5-Puchasing
> part prices
> part availability
> lead times
> delivery dates
> 6-Schedule tracking
> were's the board in the design cycle
> 7-Marketing
> the price of the unit
> Etc...
> Tracking could be the used for the whole process
> of a product. So when the engineer adds a chip or
> the board designer adds 2 layers, everyone to the CEO
> knows the impact to the schedule and price of the unit.
> Manufacturing would also be alerted a rev is coming and not to
> order older rev boards. etc,
> A product that would do all this
> would be worth a lot bucks, and would be something
> I don't think you would want to write.
>
> Lou Dallara
> >
> >
> > We have written our own tracking software. It really is not difficult
> > to do. We did it just using a shell/awk script that is activated when
> > the user logs out. It asks the user about their activities during that
> > day, and keeps a running log of comments, hours spent on different processes,
> > as well as the number of changes during the course of the design. At the
> > end of the job (or any time actually), a second script can be run which
> > will produce a summary report. This is pretty easy stuff, so why pay
> > big bucks to an eda vendor for something you can do yourself?
> >
> > Ken Barrett
> > Cisco Systems
> > San Jose CA
> > [log in to unmask]
> > 408.526.5625
> >
> > > From [log in to unmask] Mon Nov 4 11:12:56 1996
> > > Resent-Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 13:03:33 -0800
> > > Resent-Sender: [log in to unmask]
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> > > Date: Mon, 04 Nov 96 08:56:00 PST
> > > From: "Pete Waddell" <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Encoding: 36 Text
> > > To: [log in to unmask]
> > > Subject: Re: Tracking Software
> > > Resent-Message-ID: <"WHelR2.0.z5E.nwXVo"@ipc>
> > > Resent-From: [log in to unmask]
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> > > Content-Length: 2068
> > >
> > > Actually most EDA companies are jumping on this band wagon, I'd
> > > certainly contact whoever your EDA vendor/supplier is for a product
> > > that works hand-in0-glove eith your existing tools.
> > >
> > >
> > > ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
> > >
> > > Subject: Tracking Software
> > > Author: [log in to unmask] at Internet
> > > Date: 11/1/96 3:33 PM
> > >
> > >
> > > I would like to find out what methods other companies are using to track and
> > > record metrics for PWB Design/Layout.
> > >
> > > What I am looking for is something more than just a spreadsheet, although
> > > that could be a part of it. I would like a system that we can record the
> > > date the Engineer gives us the schematic and records all activity through
> > > the design process until final documentation is completed including the
> > > assembly drawing. Also, included would be a data base to record metrics
> > > (such as card size, number of components, number of nets, time spent on each
> > > step, etc) that we could use for future projects to estimate design time and
> > > manpower.
> > >
> > > Any information you could share would be appreciated.
> > >
> > > Lew Burnett
> > >
> > > E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> > >
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