“The only thing that is constant is change.” Heraclitus 500BCE
I live and work in what is known as “Silicon Valley.” Not really any different than any other densely populated industrial high-tech area, other than the fact that just like the Hollywood of the 1930’s, Silicon Valley has a national reputation for “opportunity.” If you have an idea for a service or a product that might fill a need (even if it is a very narrow niche need), there is enough money floating locally to create a “startup.”
From the idea of interchangeable parts popularized in the United States by Eli Whitney for muskets and Henry Ford's mass production techniques to Japan's "kaizen" (continuous improvement) methodologies, and techniques like LEAN and AGILE, manufacturers are always on the lookout for ways to improve – increase yields, shorten raw-materials-to-finished-product times, reduce waste, and more.
The main goal of all manufacturing companies is to deliver the product on time to the customer.
Sounds simple, yes, but it is not. You can create the greatest design, but it will be worthless if it includes expensive parts or parts you cannot get on time. Long lead times means risk to production milestones. Think about two important activities for every manufacturing company: 1) designing a great product and 2) purchasing parts and outsourcing the work to subcontractors. These processes are heavily intertwined and require coordination (which is often lacking in existing tools) and transparency.
In 1970, tire manufacturer Firestone recalled 10 million tires. A faulty engineering design separated the belt from the tread: the rubber on the circumference that makes contact with the road. Unfortunately, it took dozens of accidents to recognize the manufacturing defect.
New engineers need to understand their mistakes can have serious consequences. If you want to move up the career ladder swiftly, the room for error is slim to none (actually none).
If you're a first-time hardware creator, here's something you might not have learned: Your hardware's prototype is the key stage between idea and production (manufacturing lots of them).
“What is not on paper has not been said.” Anonymous
Let's talk about customer requirements.
Sometimes I find myself in a social situation where I don’t know a bunch of folks. After introductions, one of the first questions is: “What do you do?” I try to gage the level of interest and most of the time my answer is pretty simple: “I work as an engineer.”
It’s easy to get excited about a project that you are working on – in fact, it happens to me all the time.
I start working on something and as I find out more about the technical issues, or the work’s relevance in the overall scheme of things, I get more and more excited about the work that I am doing. And when I get an opportunity to present out the status of the project or brief the experts on a particular issue being worked on, I want to make sure I present as full of a picture of the project as possible. That just makes sense: good data in = good results out.
Let me admit something up front: I didn’t start drinking coffee until I turned 40.
In our current caffeinated society, where 32-ounce morning coffee thermoses are the norm, this must sound pretty backwards or maybe unsophisticated. Truth be told, I thought coffee tasted bitter and had an acidy aftertaste. Unless I put so much sugar and milk into my coffee that it started tasting like coffee ice cream, I wouldn’t drink it.