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Electronic Design - Project Management

J

Joe G \(Home\)

Jan 1, 1970
0
HI All,

I have worked a little in a electronic design team in a previous job... and
I want to communicate to my boss that there are a lot of steps required in
building a successful product as well as design resources required and
electrical approvals etc.

My boss has experience is electronic retail but limited experience in R&D ,
design and production of a product.

I have a few steps here... and I would appreciate any other factors you
think I should communicate also.

** specifically for the electronic / hardware design part EG add 4 weeks
for R&D samples and hardware tooling etc **

-draw up a product concept spec - what is it likely to do
- get boss to sign off product concept spec
-from the product concept spec - draw up a full product spec
-get the boss to sign off product spec
-draw up a design specification - including topology of the design (major
silicon cost and etc)
- Budget cost out the Design based on 1 or more topologies
- Silicon cost
- R&D design time and material cost
- Hardware cost
-licence fees, IP cost, approval fees
- anticipated production cost
- overall product cost per volume mfg.
- Cost of development tools and test equipment required.

- boss signs off on budget costs or 1 or more topologies

- select one of the 1 topologies to start R&D development (1)
(signed off by boss)

OK we can begin

-Begin R&D to work towards completing selected design
- Order in development tools and test equipment not immediately available
for design

- Develop early R&D prototype board to prove concept and design topology

- Boss Signs off on R&D prototypes.... OR makes changes to product
specifications go to (1)

- R&D Prototypes approved - begin production prototype design

- Complete production prototype design and Boss signs off on the production
prototypes
(compare against product specification)

- Sales and Marketing can be begin to draw up marketing plans

- Develop a test specification and test jigs for production

- Procure components and PCB for production

- Send test specification and test jigs to production area.

- production begins

- Sales and Marketing can begin to release Marketing plan

- Monitor production testing results and take random samples from production
test production and design quality
(feed back and improve design or production procedure where necessary)

- Production lot complete.... Take final random inspection to test against
AQL (quality) sampling plan.

- Flog the product on the market.

- Monitor any returns or failures of the product and improve design /
production.
 
J

Joe G \(Home\)

Jan 1, 1970
0
OH.... I forgot to add extensively test (thrash) production prototype
samples... to prove a robust design. Just after completed production
prototype design.

(perhpas even an extensive field trial).


JG
 
F

Frithiof Andreas Jensen

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joe G (Home) said:
HI All,

I have worked a little in a electronic design team in a previous job... and
I want to communicate to my boss that there are a lot of steps required in
building a successful product as well as design resources required and
electrical approvals etc.

My boss has experience is electronic retail but limited experience in R&D ,
design and production of a product.

I have a few steps here... and I would appreciate any other factors you
think I should communicate also.

I think you want sales and marketing up front BEFORE writing any specs or doing
any work - the purpose of designing a product is to make money, to make money it
has to sell, therefore sales & marketing (and customers) has to like the
product! (Boss'es *like* sales: They are people who *make money* while all those
engineers are just pissing it away on stupid stuff, so you want sales people on
your team to placate the boss).

During development you will need to work in parallel with sales & marketing -
they f.ex. can test features on "tame" customers before they are designed in and
prioritise what the customers actually want.

You will probably want several prototypes, not just one.

You will want to reduce cycle-time as much as possible. Time is more precious
than money!
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
HI All,

I have worked a little in a electronic design team in a previous job... and
I want to communicate to my boss that there are a lot of steps required in
building a successful product as well as design resources required and
electrical approvals etc.

My boss has experience is electronic retail but limited experience in R&D ,
design and production of a product.

I have a few steps here... and I would appreciate any other factors you
think I should communicate also.

** specifically for the electronic / hardware design part EG add 4 weeks
for R&D samples and hardware tooling etc **

-draw up a product concept spec - what is it likely to do
- get boss to sign off product concept spec
-from the product concept spec - draw up a full product spec
-get the boss to sign off product spec
-draw up a design specification - including topology of the design (major
silicon cost and etc)
- Budget cost out the Design based on 1 or more topologies
- Silicon cost
- R&D design time and material cost
- Hardware cost
-licence fees, IP cost, approval fees
- anticipated production cost
- overall product cost per volume mfg.
- Cost of development tools and test equipment required.

- boss signs off on budget costs or 1 or more topologies

- select one of the 1 topologies to start R&D development (1)
(signed off by boss)

OK we can begin

-Begin R&D to work towards completing selected design
- Order in development tools and test equipment not immediately available
for design

- Develop early R&D prototype board to prove concept and design topology

- Boss Signs off on R&D prototypes.... OR makes changes to product
specifications go to (1)

- R&D Prototypes approved - begin production prototype design

- Complete production prototype design and Boss signs off on the production
prototypes
(compare against product specification)

- Sales and Marketing can be begin to draw up marketing plans

- Develop a test specification and test jigs for production

- Procure components and PCB for production

- Send test specification and test jigs to production area.

- production begins

- Sales and Marketing can begin to release Marketing plan

- Monitor production testing results and take random samples from production
test production and design quality
(feed back and improve design or production procedure where necessary)

- Production lot complete.... Take final random inspection to test against
AQL (quality) sampling plan.

- Flog the product on the market.

- Monitor any returns or failures of the product and improve design /
production.

Cool. You presuade a boss who knows little about the technology to
sign off on every step, so you can blame him when bad things happen.

John
 
B

BobG

Jan 1, 1970
0
Evidently there is a big difference between requirements (what you want
it to do) and specs (what it does). While cost is an obvious factor,
reliability, maintainability, power consumption, size are all
characteristics that might be the most important consideration in
different situations. I guess if its cheap enough, it doesnt need to be
reliable or maintainable, just buy some spares. (This doesnt work with
airplane engines). Want to tell us what you're building so we can give
you our ideas of how much we'd pay for it?
 
L

Le Chaud Lapin

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joe said:
[snip]

Some might disagree, but I have found that, for new designs where there
is a lot of creativity involved, it is better to keep the
sales/marketing people away from the process until you have a working
prototype or a pretty good idea of how one would be built. There
should be many iterations of the prototype by a single or small group
of individuals so the cost of development at that stage is limited to
the resources required in that small group.

Much of the expense of product development comes from endless meetings,
trips, customer conferences - essentially too many cooks in the kitchen
who have no real bearing (at that stage) on the the success of the
product, but simply waste company resources.

Once you have something that you are certain is inline with what Sales,
Marketing, customers, etc. will want, and you have the major kinks out,
*then* it is ok to start bringing people on board. At that point, your
the role should director to servant, taking into account the remaining
demands, tweaks, features,...striving to accommodate each.

Too often, the R in R&D is hindered by unnecessary bureaucracy.

-Le Chaud Lapin-
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joe said:
[snip]

Some might disagree, but I have found that, for new designs where there
is a lot of creativity involved, it is better to keep the
sales/marketing people away from the process until you have a working
prototype or a pretty good idea of how one would be built. There
should be many iterations of the prototype by a single or small group
of individuals so the cost of development at that stage is limited to
the resources required in that small group.

Much of the expense of product development comes from endless meetings,
trips, customer conferences - essentially too many cooks in the kitchen
who have no real bearing (at that stage) on the the success of the
product, but simply waste company resources.

Once you have something that you are certain is inline with what Sales,
Marketing, customers, etc. will want, and you have the major kinks out,
*then* it is ok to start bringing people on board. At that point, your
the role should director to servant, taking into account the remaining
demands, tweaks, features,...striving to accommodate each.

Too often, the R in R&D is hindered by unnecessary bureaucracy.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

That's for sure. I had so many issues with Motorola sales people
trying to sell stuff I was still working on that I had the secretary
bar the sales people from access to my labs ;-)

...Jim Thompson
 
W

Winston

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joe said:
HI All,

I have worked a little in a electronic design team in a previous job... and
I want to communicate to my boss that there are a lot of steps required in
building a successful product as well as design resources required and
electrical approvals etc.

(Snip process)

You may also have to placate many agencies who require a cut of the
action up front:

FCC, UL, VDE, CSA, TUV and sometimes ATF.

FCC in the US: Federal Communications Commission: Makes sure your
product does not interfere with radio communication more than necessary.

UL in the US: Makes sure you are not overfunded.

VDE provides UL-like services in Europe.

CSA provides UL-like services in Canada.

TUV provides UL-like and FCC-like services in Germany.

ATF is used in your auto transmission.

--Winston
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
[snip]
ATF is used in your auto transmission.

--Winston

And regulates your drinking and smoking while testing your firearm ;-)

...Jim Thompson
 
W

Winston

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim said:
[snip]
ATF is used in your auto transmission.

--Winston


And regulates your drinking and smoking while testing your firearm ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Yes, I forgot to mention that bit.

--Winston
 
I

Ian Bell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joe said:
HI All,

I have worked a little in a electronic design team in a previous job...
and I want to communicate to my boss that there are a lot of steps
required in
building a successful product as well as design resources required and
electrical approvals etc.

My boss has experience is electronic retail but limited experience in R&D
, design and production of a product.

I have a few steps here... and I would appreciate any other factors you
think I should communicate also.

snip

You seem to have pretty much covered all the bases but you have forgotten
one extremely important factor. Team work. You are in a business and your
job is to help it be as successful as possible. The only way to do this is
to work in a team with others outside R&D. There are people who will tell
you to keep sales and marketing away until you have a prototype. They are
wrong. It is only your innovations that will enable your companies product
to differentiate itself from its competitors and to pick the best
innovations you need a long term dialogue with S&M. The same applies to
manufacturing. Your prototype is useless if it uses parts or processes
production cannot handle. You need to know what they can do and you need to
be able to discuss new parts and processes with them at the earliest
possible time. R&D cannot and must not work in isolation.

Ian
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
Evidently there is a big difference between requirements (what you want
it to do) and specs (what it does). While cost is an obvious factor,
reliability, maintainability, power consumption, size are all
characteristics that might be the most important consideration in
different situations. I guess if its cheap enough, it doesnt need to be
reliable or maintainable, just buy some spares. (This doesnt work with
airplane engines). Want to tell us what you're building so we can give
you our ideas of how much we'd pay for it?


Here's some of my stuff:

http://www.highlandtechnology.com/index.html


What do you think something like these are worth?

http://www.highlandtechnology.com/DSS/V350DS.html

http://www.highlandtechnology.com/DSS/V350DS.html

John
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
Do they come with Monster Cables ?:)

...Jim Thompson

Well, we do put SMBs on the front panels, and make a bit selling
BNC-SMB cables on the side!

John
 
A

AndyS

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Thompson wrote:
I had so many issues with Motorola sales people
trying to sell stuff I was still working on that I had the secretary
bar the sales people from access to my labs ;-)

...Jim Thompson


Andy writes:

When I worked at Bendix Avionics the sales people won a big
contract for developing a new ARINC navigation system for
commercial aviation. No engineering input was required prior
to getting the contract. ( Go figure )

The QUALITY guys were in my office in about a week, wanting
parts lists and schematics so they could price the item out and
get the MTBF numbers...

Hell, I hadn't even figured out IF the product could be designed
yet, much less worked out how big it was, or how the design would
go. .... OR where the hell we were going to hire all the engineers
we would need to do various pieces I couldn't do myself ...... :>))))

The solution was to give them some crap that would occupy their
time until I could figure out my next move.... Good luck. You get
pretty good at gernerating crap after a while......... Especially since
they
send the "new" guys in quality to get this stuff, and they would
accept ANYTHING just to get the hell out of my office...

Somehow, it all comes together in the end. We ain't stupid,
but we ain't God, either...

Project design generally goes a lot faster if the designers don't
have to give viewfoil presentations to management every morning
detailing their progress.....


Andy in Eureka, Texas (retired EE)
 
G

Genome

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joe G (Home) said:
HI All,
[Snip]

END

Exactly.

You are making the mistake of trying to impose something on other people in
an effort to make your own life structured and meaningful.

They've been fucking it up for years.

Be a good chap and keep it to yourself.

Everyone else is downloading Ring Tones.

DNA
 
J

Joe G \(Home\)

Jan 1, 1970
0
Thanks guys.

The product is an active RFID tag... Yes! there are a few about... but we
think we have a twist that is designed specially for an end application.

RFID active tags are little monsters that sit dormant then scream out their
tag number when woken up / activated.

The trick is to wake them up without any energy being used by the tag
(because they are battery powered). And the wake up detection mechanism must
also be very low current
(to achieve long battery life 2~5 years)

I am thinking of using the Integration Associates IA4420 and IA4220 and
IA4320 transceiver, receiver , transmitter chips from Integration
Associates.
http://www.integration.com/

JG
 
J

Joel Kolstad

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joe G (Home) said:
The trick is to wake them up without any energy being used by the tag
(because they are battery powered). And the wake up detection mechanism must
also be very low current
(to achieve long battery life 2~5 years)

What "wake up" distance do you need? Presumably the advantage of active tags
is the much greater read/write distance, but even passive tags can often
manage to get a handful of microwatts out of the transmitter at, e.g., 10',
which is plenty to switch a FET and turn on your microcontroller and then
verify whether or not anyone's "really" talking to you.

Assuming you're not super space constrained (i.e., the tag is closer to those
for box cars than the ones for candy bars), with a reasonably high-Q front-end
filter I'd willing to bet you could get enough power out of a "wake up" pulse
on a specific frequency as your link budget normally allows communication over
anyway to completely eliminate any "sleep" current.

(On the other hand, often you can run the battery power management numbers and
find that an average current draw of, e.g., 10uA is well under the battery
self-discharge rate anyway, so you can just wake up the CPU every now and
again and check for "pings." This is probably cheaper...)
 
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