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Technical Writing tips for Engineers

Technical Writing tips for Engineers

I’ve teamed up with Skylar Wooden, a Technical Writer, and Katie Butler, a CPA, the ladies behind Pare and Flourish to bring you some technical writing tips for engineers.  

Engineers are incredibly knowledgeable people. You understand how to design and build the most complex of structures.  You analyze and evaluate intricate data.  But, many engineers miss one of the most important aspects of any profession—explaining your work to others. Whether it’s to tell someone how to perform a task, or report on a project to a superior, relaying information is just as critical as knowing the information.

As an engineer, you can offer your expertise in two ways: verbal or written communication. You likely deal with the verbal aspect of this on a daily basis when you answer questions, explain a process, or even talk about your job with your friends. So, how often are you writing? [Read more…]

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Using Hierarchy In Complex System Requirements and Design

Using Hierarchy In Complex System Requirements and Design

Managing requirements for complex systems can be challenging, however, establishing a hierarchical framework of key questions (answered at each layer of the hierarchy) can be quite helpful.

While some regulatory authorities (such as the FAA) may require various layers of documentation and traceability, this article isn’t necessarily advocating a bureaucratic development process.  The process can be scaled based on the complexity of your system, your ability to model it’s (system) design performance and/or based on the amount of product development risk the organization is willing to assume. [Read more…]

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Emphasizing Product Requirements

Emphasizing Product Requirements

In this article we’ll explore the topic of requirements, and attitudes about identifying requirements before the design work begins.

In my experience, I’ve had design resources literally state “I hope there are no requirements”.  (Unconstrained design and no requirements certainly made this designer’s job much easier.)

There are several other reasons requirements are sometimes neglected:

[Read more…]

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How to Craft a Purpose-filled Mission Statement

How to Craft a Purpose-filled Mission Statement

Unlocking your Engineering Career Potential

One of the best pieces of career advice that I have ever heard is to treat your career as a company, of which you are the CEO.  And like any company, your career will need a guiding principle that will help you stay focused on your purpose.  Companies today would not think of operating without a mission statement to guide them.  However, too many of us skip this critical aspect of running our own careers. [Read more…]

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Ideation and Product Development

Ideation and Product Development

In recent articles I focused on a ‘linear’ approach to product development by understanding customer needs, establishing requirements (“what the design provides”), establishing a conceptual design, etc.

In this article, I’ll discuss a framework whereby an idea for a product or design might kick-off the process.

Also, rather than a commercialized product, we will assume our goal is to successfully demonstrate the idea’s feasibility.  (This is common for a start-up company, where the business model might be to demonstrate product success with a goal of obtaining more venture capital, or to sell the intellectual property.  Alternatively, a large company might want a separate idea development process that takes invention off the critical path.)

[Read more…]

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Why Parents Make the Best Reliability Engineers

Why Parents Make the Best Reliability Engineers

I am a parent of two young children. As a result of my experiences as a mom, I feel that parents make great Reliability Engineers because there are so many shared skill sets. Please enjoy this lighthearted comparison to start your week out with a little humor.

First, I have to point out the development of a brand new Reliability Engineer requires the same skills of lubrication and vibration that the conception of a child requires. [Read more…]

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What is Validation?

What is Validation?

Significant savings in product development costs can be realized with robust validation processes, starting with requirements validation.  Validation confirms the product meets customer needs for the products intended use, and answers the question “are we designing the right product?” The “right product” therefore starts with the “right” product requirements.  Even a product designed with detailed requirements, but incorrect specification limits, can be considered the “wrong product” (since the product would be rejected by the customer.) [Read more…]

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Design Optimization Using Value Equations

Design Optimization Using Value Equations

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is an excellent tool to ensure linkage of customer needs to product requirements.  This article will provide a high-level overview on creating a ‘first-level’ QFD and how it can be used to guide design optimization.

(There are many additional features of QFD , however, and readers of this article are encouraged to research the methodology further.)

As stated above, we use the QFD matrix (similar to a cause-effect matrix) to ensure linkage of customer needs to product requirements using the critical thinking / questions as follows: [Read more…]

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4 Resources to Know Your Worth in the Job Market

4 Resources to Know Your Worth in the Job Market

Are you Underpaid? 4 Resources to Know Your Worth in the Job Market

It wasn’t until I was negotiating a salary for an external job offer that I really came to understand my worth in the job market.  I started my career with a chemical engineering salary of $60k in 2007.  I felt like I had won the lottery to score this salary right out of college.

Over the next eight years, I received annual (merit) raises based on performance, career development raises that coincided with promotions, as well as a few “equity” raises.  This put me just over the six-figure mark, leaving me feeling like a ROCK STAR!! [Read more…]

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When the system is the customer – system integration

In recent articles I framed the structure of a market analysis to ensure we understand customer needs and value, product requirements are “the what” the design provides (to ensure customer needs are met); the design is “the how” the product requirements will be met.

Product requirements are determined by answering the following question:  “What shall the (product) design provide (output) @ input conditions?   (Input conditions are functional inputs provided by the user, or environmental conditions.)

A complex product may have several outputs that interface with a system, however, and/or several inputs may be needed in order to enable the product to perform it’s intended function.  System integration is therefore required.

Let’s assume your product is a subsystem.  The questions become:

  • “What shall the subsystem design provide (output) in order to ensure optimum system performance?
  • “What does the subsystem need (inputs) from the system in order to ensure optimum system performance?”

How do we establish optimum system performance?  We would expect the customer (system designer) would model system performance and provide functional inputs, outputs and specification limits (for your subsystem) in order to achieve optimum system performance.

In the case of a subsystem, value is in the context of the system optimization and system integration

Accordingly, subsystem integrators should understand system performance well-enough to help system designers with overall system design optimization…at the very least, understand gaps in requirements and associated system/subsystem development risks.  The subsystem requirements document therefore is a key deliverable, reviewed in detail and approved by the customer.

An integrated approach to ensuring customer needs and value should be embedded in the product life cycle process, and can save your company (and your customers) millions of dollars in product development costs.

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Why Market Requirements Don’t Really Exist

Why Market Requirements Don’t Really Exist

Wouldn’t it be great if we could require the stock market to provide us 15% increases in our portfolio every year…or if we could simply require a sunny day for a picnic?

You might be familiar with the term ‘market requirements’ or a ‘market requirements document’ as a deliverable in the definition phase of a product life cycle process.  To understand why market requirements don’t really exist, we must first provide the definition of a requirement. [Read more…]

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Eight Ways to Keep Reliability Engineers From Leaving

Eight Ways to Keep Reliability Engineers From Leaving

A topic that often comes up lately is high turnover, especially the perception that this is common and desirable among millennials. Born in the mid eighties, I am right on the cusp between millennial and Generation X, and I am one of the aforementioned employees with a high turnover history. A specialized Reliability Engineer with nearly ten years of work experience, I have rarely stayed with a company much over two years. I never intended to be a person who moved between companies so regularly, it just kind of happened.  [Read more…]

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Enabling Customer Value in Product Design

Enabling Customer Value in Product Design

Use an Integrated Approach in the Product Life Cycle Process to Enable Customer Value

Given our primary goal of developing a profitable product, our objective in the design process is to maximize customer value and minimize cost.  From a financial analysis standpoint: we pursue products with the highest possible margins (ie. charge the customer “as much” as possible, and make the product for “as little” as possible).  Of course we also want to sell “as many” as possible. [Read more…]