Korad KA3005P Review/FAIL - ISO rants

[ivan747]

Put your ISO rants here.
Couldn't someone possibly make a more simplified version of ISO9001 that used faster processes and didn't require verification for things like updating datasheets? I don't know much about this, but I suspect companies loose quite some time either trying to get this ISO thing documented or trying to figure out how to fix something that never got properly documented.

[Scopeman1]

Thanks for this. I just posted a suggestion for a separate rant on ISO but as a newbee didn't know how to do it.  Here's the post copied to this thread.... 
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Can we stick to topic? ISO is polluting this thread.   There are exceptions to all rules and we all know situations when quality systems get in the way of a good product, right?  We designers are probably the most non-conforming and hopefully creative people on the planet, so of course we hate ISO or anything else that forces conformity.  It is for the boring people in the QA dept so that hopefully someone ends up with what we intended over and over again. If a company chooses to have a quality policy and have it audited then good for them. Any company's quality policy, ISO or not, is only as good as its processes, implementation and its mangers making sure it is followed. If your hot new product is depicted in a folder full of scribbles then whose fault is that? And in 5 years when it needs repair and the folder's gone missing, same thing.   So long as having a QA policy is not used for inflating prices then you are probably safer buying from a company that has an ISO9000 quality system than buying from one that has not. There will be of course exceptions.  So start a new thread for more ranting on ISO9000 and let's see how this PSU situation develops.  It sounds like they developed a 3A supply then pushed it to 5A with nothing more than a bigger transformer and it crapped out. 

Hmmm I suppose this post was mostly a bit off topic too....  must be a breakdown in the blog's QA system....

[poorchava]

I actually work for a company dealing in heavy/utility vehicle systems (ya know, ABS, EBS, braking systems, transmission control, active suspension etc). We generally have all this ISO crap elevated to completly absurd level. That would generally be desirable, because if our product fails, there WILL be dead people, but also makes any development painfully long.

For one example: a colleague of mine was doing a pcb for a jtag adaptor, which was to accomodate different pinouts used on pcb's to standard programming devices. The project wasn't at all related to safety, and comprised of 3 connectors and a small PCB. Normally you would think of it, draw schematic, route the pcb, fabricate the pcb at home solder it and test it in 2 hours tops. When you add ISO documentation and getting approvals from everyone the project took >3 weeks for PCB design only. And again: that wasn't even remotely connected to any safety issues. Every redegisn (like switching from SMA to SMB diode package) requires approval from testing, EMC voodoo squad, assembly, marketing, customer,  management. And possibly some tests to proove that the device performs equally or better than what was being manufactured before even, if the change if totally minor.

Also, automotive related companies have additional stuff like AEC-Q certifications, ISO/TS16949, PPAP process and so on. i'm glad we have computers, because otherwise we would probably have to cut out like half of amazonian rainforests in order to have enough paper to document all this stuff.

[ivan747]

I think that in critical mission applications it is crucial to document very well everything, that guarantees that you can cooperate with authorities more easily, for example. I imagine that in the aerospace industry documentation is far more important that, say the consumer electronics industry.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I think that in critical mission applications it is crucial to document very well everything, that guarantees that you can cooperate with authorities more easily, for example. I imagine that in the aerospace industry documentation is far more important that, say the consumer electronics industry.

Although you have to wonder how many people die because of the delay in introducing new safety equipment..!

[ivan747]

I never thought about it that way. But on the realistic side, companies can't get sued for delaying a new safety technology unless they are under some sort of contract or regulation. They can get sued for unreliable devices.

[jahonen]

I have sometimes wondered if these paperwork-enhancing standards really improve the reliability and quality of the final product, since they seem to put a heavy load for the designer elsewhere than the actual design process (like just having some documents formally ready on schedule and review). Since human nature tends to be lazy it might cause to skip something and reviews tend easily to be just "box-ticking" due to schedule pressures. More complex a process is, easier it is to make a mistake.

I had a "privilege" to be an innocent bystander on a project conforming to IEC 61508 (functional safety), I designed some non-safety critical parts of the system, a FPGA. I can't help thinking if all that IEC 61508 stuff was just a marketing thing, not really for a enhancement of reliability.

I have never seen any other such a simple thing from electronics perspective what would require 8 spins (I'm sure that there are still features which require changes) of the PCB because of some stupid mistakes and almost complete lack of conventional "sweat and tears" testing. All that because all testing efforts seemed to go into IEC61508 compliance proving that the product fails gracefully, i.e. paperwork. But usability might be quite poor as there might be lot of spurious interlocks due to "features". What we would have lost if we had done it in "normal" way, besides formal IEC 61508 compliance for marketing purposes?

I have gotten an impression that ISO9000 etc are mainly a marketing tool. Many bigger companies insist on that from their subcontractors and they sometimes perform audits themselves. There is inherently nothing wrong having a documented procedures for things. But these procedures should come from proven practices which have been found to work and not vice versa.

Regards,
Janne