The really, really good companies do it by providing us with every kind of coffee and fresh rolls we would ever want, daily, without fail, close to our desks and for free. They continue to pay for excellent medical care plans that are very comprehensive and have options for all, as needed, at a very reasonable cost. They pay us at least the current average salary for the actual job description we are performing, without attempting to fudge-down the job description in order to justify paying us a lower wage. They provide us with excellent vacation benefits, lucrative stock options in our twice-matched 401k plans, and other forms of time away or flexible hours. As we get closer to retirement, they conduct worldwide searches to carefully select new candidates using licensed psychologists to help HR carefully screen and select only well-qualified and Personality Type-compatible possible replacements (no Bozos) perhaps five years ahead of time to work with us and gain the valuable, valuable experience and ability to design it right the first time. This results in design changes or new designs with no producibility hiccups, no design flaws, bulletproof reliability, built-in redundancy, lowest possible component cost, lowest possible manufacturing cost, artwork that makes an assembly defect stick out like a sore thumb for the inspectors to see, alternate padstacks that can accommodate multiple component choices, a complete and easily configured BOM with nothing but easily available and cheap COTS on it, in minimum time, and so on and so forth.
These companies recognize the value of wise and savvy experience that cannot be taught any other way except by forming a mentoring relationship with the underlings, and they recognize us in front of the whole company when we do a "pretty good" job in our designs, and recognize us again when the underlings we have mentored do an "even better" job thanks only to our excellent training and mentoring skills. They never balk at paying for trips to fancy hotels in warm Southern cities like Las Vegas or San Diego with good golf courses or ocean fishing during the winter months so we can keep on top of the latest technology, justify our resistance to change, and laugh at some of the "new fangled ideas" we see there. The longer they can keep us on the job, even on a part-time basis through massive accumulation of vacation time, the less their chances are of a newbie making a change that we do not approve of, which as you all know could screw up our otherwise perfect designs, causing upset customers, upset CEOs, lawsuits over liability for failed product and disrupted market schedules, and 10,000 other bad things you don't want to even think about.
So when you do think about it, those skill-retention practices are certainly worth it.
And that's the way it should be. It is known in the industry as "succession planning", which may be a new phrase for you all to learn today. And remember, only the best companies in the world practice all of these things diligently, and that is why they REMAIN the best companies in the world. If YOUR company does not or cannot do this, then you should stomp right into the upper management meeting tomorrow, unannounced and uninvited, and tell them that I said to either get with it or get back up on the porch with the other Chihuahuas.
Anybody disagree? What...what?
Odin
-----Original Message-----
From: DesignerCouncil [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brooks, William
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2016 11:00 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [DC] Design knowledge and experience capture?
I've seen a need and desire to address an age old challenge in the design and manufacturing of electrical and electromechanical machines and circuits.
This is mainly regarding the capture of the experience and knowledge of the designer so that future edits to the design are not done in a way that inadvertently compromises the integrity of the design and creates issues with an existing product that were not issues before.
Many of you I'm sure, have experienced making changes to an existing design that is in production. Typically there is a need to change something due to an obsolete or discontinued part. Someone completely unfamiliar with the design may make assumptions about it from looking at the schematic and the board and not actually see all the potential impacts from making a simple change to the layout or circuit.
Many of the circuits we create have an integral relationship to the function of the circuit... Parts placement, arrangement, circuit trace widths and proximity to other traces or circuit groups, trace widths, thermal vias, stitch vias between planes, proximity of components, sensitive traces or components, high voltages and safety margins for spacing, diff pairs... etc. The list can be long...
Some of us add notes in the design to warn future designers, who will be asked to make changes in the circuit, of WHY the circuit is laid out the way it is...
I'm thinking that we need a better way to capture the knowledge and experience of the design intent and archive it with the design in such a way that if someone else needs to take it over they have all the knowledge they need to manage it at their fingertips. If you do this, how do you go about doing it in your organization?
Thanks,
William Brooks, CID+
Printed Circuit Designer
2747 Loker Ave West
Carlsbad, CA 92010-6603
760-930-7212
Fax: 760.918.8332
Mobile: 760.216.0170
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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