Engineer mistakes

[Dave Turner]

Legit-Design

I think you are over optimistic with your graph if we're talking about unscheduled meetings. I had a very good boss, for whom I had a great deal of respect, but he would insist on going on for 15 minutes about something that I'd acknowledged and accepted in the first 15-30 seconds. It usually took a good hour to get back on track after the subsequent fallout discussion.

[Galenbo]

this


non-geek = boss
geek = anyone who does something other than talk all day

It's hard for some people to understand why it's not helping if they come and ask the same damn thing every 5 minutes.

What's on the Y-axis (es) ? I don't understand the red points.

[AG6QR]

I make my living in software, and only come hear to read about hardware as a hobby and diversion.

I can't imagine being fired for a little $1000 mistake!  I agree that you don't want to work for that kind of company.  I could be wrong because I don't have the whole story, but it sounds to me like maybe the management responsible for that kind of reaction just made a mistake that could cost the company much more than a thousand dollars. 

I can't count the number of little $1000 mistakes that have happened over my career.  Bugs are a part of the game.  The best we can do is try to design as few as we can into our products, try to implement as few as we can, and then test, validate, retest, and revalidate, and fix errors as early as possible.  Every product development cycle will have numerous errors, but the expensive ones are the ones that are found and fixed late.

Part of the art of good engineering management is recognizing that humans make mistakes, and mitigating this fact by organizing your processes and procedures with enough validations, checks, and balances so that one single engineer's momentary brain fart won't bankrupt your company, won't cause the rocket to blow up on the launch pad, won't kill anybody, won't even be noticed by very many people.  With good processes in place, most of the stupid mistakes will be caught before they become really expensive (and no, $1000 isn't really expensive).

[hamdi.tn]

Part of the art of good engineering management is recognizing that humans make mistakes... With good processes in place, most of the stupid mistakes will be caught.

total agree on that,
well, as no validation or check procedure exist in this company , i usually work the client engineering team to validate the result or to modify the pcb as they may have a second thought about what they actually need. what happen in this particular case that i send a validation mail to the client via our manager assistant (that's the procedure here, no direct contact with client ) the project manager blocked the mail and didn't check the files himself either and pass those files directly to pcb manufacturer not for prototyping but to get 150 board done.  saying that the board was simple so no need to check  to prototype ... well shit happen

[dannyf]

what happen in this particular case

I don't think it does any one any favor to dwell on the past. What happened happened and it is time to move on.

[AG6QR]

the project manager blocked the mail and didn't check the files himself either and pass those files directly to pcb manufacturer not for prototyping but to get 150 board done.  saying that the board was simple so no need to check  to prototype ... well shit happen

Well, the decision to skip prototyping was the expensive mistake, I believe. 

For a small run, if the cost of letting a mistake slip through is small enough, maybe it's ok to skip prototyping, and accept the risk that the boards may be bad.  But if you're going to do that, it's probably still a good idea to do as much other checking and validation as practical, to try and reduce the risk of spinning a bad batch of boards.  And the person (or group) who makes the decision to skip prototyping should accept the responsibility for the consequences of that decision.

[Zad]

As the saying goes:

On time.
On spec.
On budget.

Pick 2.

Engineering is by it's nature empirical. If they want certainties then they should try religion instead, because otherwise they won't find it in this universe. I bet it cost them more than $1k in managers paperwork! It is amazing how quickly people like that lose sight of the real costs in business, all the overheads that they don't explicitly get billed for. Dave is right though, you don't want to work there.

[dannyf]

It is quite irrational for a firm to fire a person over a $1000 mistake - it costs the firm more than that to get a person fired.

I suspect that something else was driving the decision.

[hamdi.tn]

what happen in this particular case

 it is time to move on.

already moved on 

[TerraHertz]

this


non-geek = boss
geek = anyone who does something other than talk all day

It's hard for some people to understand why it's not helping if they come and ask the same damn thing every 5 minutes.

What's on the Y-axis (es) ? I don't understand the red points.

You must be having a meeting just now?

Y axis is 'productivity', an ineffable quantity.
I like how it does negative for a while after arriving at work at 9am. When you discover some mistakes you made yesterday, and have to undo them.  Then at 9.30am just when you are in the depths of chaos and confusion about how to fix them, your boss turns up and wants a progress report.
He'll turn up again at 2pm, when he gets back from an extended social lunch, and very cheerfully be expecting you to be efficiently working at the top of your day. Instead of being completely distracted by your co-workers who returned from lunch an hour ago and all then wanted to chat to you about what they heard John say to Bill about Paula.

The boss passes by again at 5pm on his way home, just as your concentration is being blown again by most other people leaving and chatting to you on their way out.

Finally, once there's almost no one around you can get some stuff done for a few hours, except when someone orders in pizza at 6pm. You go home at 8pm. Between 11 and 2pm you finally see a solution to that problem that's been defeating everyone for months, but one part of the circuit is not clear in your mind. At 4am you suddenly wake up with that last part crystal clear. You write it down then go back to sleep.

[jlmoon]

I like how it does negative for a while after arriving at work at 9am.

That's the time spent in the reading room   

[SeanB]

As the saying goes:

On time.
On spec.
On budget.

Pick 2.

Engineering is by it's nature empirical. If they want certainties then they should try religion instead, because otherwise they won't find it in this universe. I bet it cost them more than $1k in managers paperwork! It is amazing how quickly people like that lose sight of the real costs in business, all the overheads that they don't explicitly get billed for. Dave is right though, you don't want to work there.

What do you mean pick 2? Pick one, and we will see about how much the others may be applied to this.

Or, Choose one:

Quick
Cheap
Good

Choose one, the other 2 will be a variable.

Generally you find that option 2 is the most common choice. Then they want to know when you will be done and why isn't it finished yet as you have had 3 minutes to do it, and want it to be perfect. they also moan about how much it costs, and that they could do it faster and cheaper.

[Tinkerer]

As the saying goes:

On time.
On spec.
On budget.

Pick 2.

Engineering is by it's nature empirical. If they want certainties then they should try religion instead, because otherwise they won't find it in this universe. I bet it cost them more than $1k in managers paperwork! It is amazing how quickly people like that lose sight of the real costs in business, all the overheads that they don't explicitly get billed for. Dave is right though, you don't want to work there.

What do you mean pick 2? Pick one, and we will see about how much the others may be applied to this.

Or, Choose one:

Quick
Cheap
Good

Choose one, the other 2 will be a variable.

Generally you find that option 2 is the most common choice. Then they want to know when you will be done and why isn't it finished yet as you have had 3 minutes to do it, and want it to be perfect. they also moan about how much it costs, and that they could do it faster and cheaper.

I have always heard pick 2. And in fact pick two is the original way it was meant as well. Never heard anyone say that you only get one.

[retrolefty]

Quick
Cheap
Good

 Yep, it goes "you only get to pick two".

[Psi]

I like how it does negative for a while after arriving at work at 9am. When you discover some mistakes you made yesterday, and have to undo them.  Then at 9.30am just when you are in the depths of chaos and confusion about how to fix them, your boss turns up and wants a progress report.

hehe, also when you get to work you have to answer all the emails that have piled up and it puts you into a bad mood. Hence you are now less productive than you were before checking emails 

[SeanB]

It says pick two, but in practise you only get the one choice, the rest are variable.

[Dave Turner]

In design and production environments setting up and following appropriate procedure is good.

The problem is that if procedures are over restrictive nothing ever gets done. Finding a balance for the situation is key.

[VK3DRB]

I had an experienced and competent TV repairman friend who told me he did a home visit to fix a TV back in the 80's. The woman threw him out after she complained he was incompetent and did not know what he was doing because he had to read the instruction manual (actually it was the circuit diagram he was using to debug the TV).

Like the boss sacking a bloke for a $1000 mistake on a PCB, ignorant people (the boss in that case) make poor judgements base upon their own inexperience. Everyone makes mistakes and those who don't are liars.

But there are engineers around who just don't get it.

A few years ago one arrogant engineer thought he was superior, but in fact his PCB layout skills were hopeless. Four spins on a simple PCB that had only 6 LEDs and one tactile switch on it. And around the same time he had a 5V to ground short on an internal plane, because he didn't bother doing a design rule check. In the end he was paid off to get out.

I know a CEO is was trained as an electrical engineer. He has expertise in optics and lasers, but knows nothing about writing software and his electronics expertise is below the poverty line. I tell him to always budget for TWO prototype PCBs - the first spin and one re-spin to fix any problems and to consider it a bonus if we get it right the first time. "Any problems" could be an Altium bug, an error by the engineer, marketing changing the requirements, or EMI issues.

[AndyC_772]

"Any problems" could be an Altium bug, an error by the engineer, marketing changing the requirements, or EMI issues.

...or incorrect data sheets, or any number of issues where devices don't behave like their simulation models, or PCB vendors helpfully "correcting" artwork - and yet it's still virtually impossible to get some people to understand that a rev B is likely to be needed and should be included in the project schedule. The idea that engineers should "just get it right" first time remains oddly prevalent even amongst people whose job it is to know better 

[hans]

I like how it does negative for a while after arriving at work at 9am.

That's the time spent in the reading room   

Or possibly opening your mailbox and finding these e-mails:

"[Urgent] New Specifications - Complete Overhaul"
"New use-cases!" -- "Shouldn't be that hard to add right? We have already sold 3 of these! Should ship in 2 earlier than planned."
"Customer coming in tomorrow" -- "He is not happy about the previous tests"
"PANIC PANIC PANIC"

[Bored@Work]

I like how it does negative for a while after arriving at work at 9am.

That's the time spent in the reading room   

Or possibly opening your mailbox and finding these e-mails:

"[Urgent] New Specifications - Complete Overhaul"
"New use-cases!" -- "Shouldn't be that hard to add right? We have already sold 3 of these! Should ship in 2 earlier than planned."
"Customer coming in tomorrow" -- "He is not happy about the previous tests"
"PANIC PANIC PANIC"

Guys, you got it wrong.

That is the lack of coffee. It takes some time until it kicks in.

[VK3DRB]

"Any problems" could be an Altium bug, an error by the engineer, marketing changing the requirements, or EMI issues.

...or incorrect data sheets, or any number of issues where devices don't behave like their simulation models, or PCB vendors helpfully "correcting" artwork - and yet it's still virtually impossible to get some people to understand that a rev B is likely to be needed and should be included in the project schedule. The idea that engineers should "just get it right" first time remains oddly prevalent even amongst people whose job it is to know better 

Agreed. We do aim to get it right the first time, but for the reasons mentioned, it sometimes does not happen. In any case, it is always valuable to have reviews of PCB designs where you leave your ego the door and listen to constructive criticism. We have reviews as part of our processes. In fact, everything anyone does is reviewed by someone before it is approved, irrespective of how experienced or skilled the developer is.

[vk6zgo]

We had to change a Transmitter site "apology" recording over from a "cartridge" system to a CD player.

Our Engineer designed an interface to convert from an "on during duration of playback" function to a "momentary operate" function to suit the CD player,& had one of the younger blokes build it up.

It was a thing of beauty!
Unfortunately,the operate function at the site was already a "momentary operate",so his design was redundant.

He was a nice bloke,so instead of butchering his device,we just modified the control circuitry,in effect making "an interface to his interface",& all was well!