Saying No is an important part – a critical part – or our job as engineers and designers. Great products are designed by people who know when to say No and when to say Yes.
Great products do not need feature lists and check boxes. Great products are sold by their users because they love them.
You know what the most difficult thing about this is? You have to choose, and choosing means you have to be brave.
"Give users what they actually want, not what they say they want. And whatever you do, don't give them new features just because your competitors have them!" – Kathy Sierra
There are a lot of steps to turn an idea into a product. Each step requires care and attention to ensure that the best product is created. Below is the process that I follow to create an electronic product. It is all laid out nicely in a linear way, but in reality a lot of the steps are occurring in parallel. Also, any step could be the starting point, it is really dependant on the product and client requirements.
Initial engineering report
This is a short report which gives everyone some preliminary ideas to work from. I like to start with this as it is a small investment in testing the idea, and provides a lot of information for the path forward.
Detailed investigation
The initial report or specification has already identified the options, now all the options are investigated in detail. This entails reading datasheets and application notes, speaking to distributors, and really understanding whether the available options will provide the required solution.
Development of proof of concept
There are two ways to go here, either develop a proof of concept using evaluation boards, or dive straight into the custom hardware design – which is better depends on the risks involved. The risks are a function of the project and the amount of experience with similar designs. Wherever possible it is nicest to speed things up, but a detailed proof of concept can take a lot of risk out of the later stages.
Final concept
After a full proof of concept it is quite clear how all the pieces fit together. At this stage we should have system block diagrams, communication protocols, component choices, disposal planning and a whole lot more down on paper. The framework for our creation is in place, now we need to make a real prototype.
Schematic layout
All the concepts and ideas have to be put down into technical drawings (an electronic drawing is called a schematic). Once this is done we have a schematic, a BOM (bill of materials), and other technical files needed for the next steps.
Printed circuit board layout
The schematic output is used to generate a printed circuit board (PCB layout). The physical size is determined and the components are placed and connected together with tracks. Any mechanical design which is required (e.g. a casing) is also done along side with this step so that the PCB will fit nicely. This can be a time consuming step, as a lot of checking is required, such as tolerances, spacing and component patterns. A set of gerber files are generated which are used to manufacture the actual PCBs.
Component procurement
Before a prototype can be built, you need all the components that will be placed on the PCB. This step is really happening in parallel with all the other steps to ensure that everything arrives at the right time. Electronic component lead times can vary significantly (from 1 to 16 weeks or more), so a fair amount of planning and scheduling is required.
Prototype manufacturing
A PCB manufacturer (such as WHCircuit or Trax) makes the PCB's according to the gerber files. The PCB is then populated with the components either by hand or machine. For a first prototype I like to populate the board by hand (where possible) so that I can test each part of the system as I build it up.
Development and debugging
The amount of effort that goes into making a system work properly is really quite big, but depends on the complexity of the system and the amount of detail that went into all the proceeding steps. It must be shown that each block of the system works and that it all works together properly. Firmware (software that runs on the system) must be tested and developed to a fully functional level. Any bugs that are detected need to be resolved and noted for the future.
Testing
Once all the functionality is working it must be fully tested, both to check that it is working correctly and to also stress the system to find out if any real world events could break things. Careful attention must be paid to test as many usage cases as possible, and more. Certain countries require specific certifications and any required tests must be done to ensure all the necessary specifications are met.
Design refinements
All of the testing and development will either have proved that the design works exactly as desired, or indicated areas that need to be improved before going ahead with manufacturing. Steps 4 to 11 are repeated until the product meets the requirement.
Initial production run
Manufacturing can bring its own challenges to the product from solderability through to the programming and testing of the product. To avoid major manufacturing disasters it is normally better to have a small initial run to iron out any problems in the process.
Product manufacturing
Once all the manufacturing issues have been resolved it is time to go into full production. This can be a big investment and the quality of the work that has gone before will determine how successful the product is.
Continuous improvements
There are always things to improve. Wherever possible I try to build in mechanisms that allow easy upgrading of products (such as in–field upgrading of firmware), but it is sometimes necessary to go through some redesign to meet a new requirement or fix a manufacturing issue. Once a product is out in the field you start to get a feel for how it is really used, which teaches you a lot about how to improve the quality.
It is a long process and is fraught with many risks, but the great reward of having created something meaningful which changes people's lives for the better is amazing.
If you are interested in creating electronic products, then please contact me.
My last post spawned an interesting discussion on how we should be focussing our energy saving efforts – should we be worrying about saving a few watts in one area, while there are other areas which are wasting kilowatts?
How we each approach this depends a lot on our personalities. Some people think big and need to see huge value resulting from their actions. Others find joy in fine tuning all the details and making sure that everything is just right.
I feel that the two go hand in hand. Each on its own lacks substance. If all you can see are the fine details it is difficult to work towards a bigger goal. If all you can see is the big goal, it is hard to see the small steps that need to be taken to achieve it. It is a bit like that saying: how do you eat and elephant? One bite at a time.
Setting big goals is important, and so is sweating the small stuff. We still come back to that question though: where should we focus our energy to have the largest impact?
There are two important areas to focus on,
The biggest point of pain, and,
The easiest thing we can do.
For businesses and home users the biggest point of pain is probably paying their electricity bill at the end of the month, which means that water heating (for homes) and HVAC (for business) are the things to focus on. The easiest thing that everyone can do is activate your computers' energy saving modes (it is really easy and costs nothing to do). Making one small change can start a process of discovery leading to further changes.
I am currently working on a warehouse floor application and one of the issues is power consumption. Power consumption affects how many units can be powered from a single power supply, and what type of cabling is used. When I made some measurements I found that the system was consuming way more energy while idle than I was happy with. The easiest (and in this case only) way to address that was to do some investigation into the power saving options of the microprocessor. I managed to cut the idle power consumption to 20% of what it was. In this case the amount of power saved per unit is not much (100mW) but the number of units is high. It helps me to increase the number of units I can drive, as well as saves a reasonable amount of energy overall. That small saving per unit will save around 350kWh/month in this application – the monthly energy consumption of my home.
So sweat the small stuff, and sweat the big stuff. Build momentum and keep moving forward.
To the engineers: what you do matters – keep making good choices.
Set your monitor/display to turn off after 15 minutes or less (don't use a screen saver).
Set your hard drives to turn off after 15 minutes or less.
Set your system to sleep after 30 minutes or less.
Choose "Minimal Power Management" as a power scheme in XP (this makes sure the processor can go into low power modes while it is not busy). In Vista make sure your "Minimum processor state" is set to a low value under the advanced power options and "Processor power management."
I am an advocate of making sure that every device consumes as little power as possible at all times. Indicator lights should be off, processors should be sleeping as much as possible, and generally the device should just be optimised to use as little power as possible.
I may have to rethink that....at least a little bit.
Dan Lockton has a brilliant blog, Architectures of Control, where he discusses how things are designed to result in a certain action (or lack of action) – or as he calls it, design with intent.
There are two devices in my home which have helped me to reconsider turning off all the lights, my DVD player and my laptop. Each has its own subtle "architecture of control" whether intentional or not.
Our DVD player has (to me) the most irritating standby light that I have ever seen on any device. When on, the light is constantly illuminated, but when in standby the light flashes continuously (at a slow rate). This drives me mad, but results in an interesting action – it causes me to turn it off at the plug when I am not using it (which is most of the time). Suddenly one little flashing light has resulted in more energy saving than having no light.
My laptop has a similar "feature." When it is powered down the battery indicator remains on (green if full, flashing yellow if charging). This used to bother me, and I thought, "Why not just leave the light off when the battery is charged?" My wife's laptop is like that, the battery indicator only flashes if it is charging, once charged it turns off.
That is all good, except my laptop communicates to me that it is plugged in and consuming standby power when it is not in use. When I unplug it from the wall socket, then the battery indicator goes off – I save the standby power of both the power brick and the laptop.
There is one problem with this, it only works on people who care. If I did not care about saving energy, then I would just leave the laptop plugged in and the DVD player on. That means that you have to consider how your users will handle this kind of subtle feedback and determine whether turning the light off, or encouraging unplugging results in more energy savings.
Sometimes the most obvious design decisions may not be the ones which result in the greatest energy saving. Keep designing for low energy consumption and also keep your mind open to new possibilities.
Problem → Idea → Concept → Design → Prototype → Refine → Produce.
In some ways that is really as simple as it is.
Changing a problem into a solution is a wonderful and rewarding process. It is about creating more value in the world around us. I often ask myself, "How does doing this make the world a better place?" By being true to that I can create (and help you create) truly great products.
I finally got around to watching "The Story of Stuff" and was absolutely blown away by the compelling and simple way that its message is presented. Spend 20 minutes of your time to watch this video (here, on the site, or download it)
It is really important that this message gets spread, as we all have a role to play in fixing what we have helped to create. As consumers we need to change how we purchase, as engineers we need to change how we create, as marketers we need to change the message that we spread.
There are some things we need to carefully consider. Take this comment from the brilliant Seth Godin,
"So I'm hoping that what you make is worthy. Marketing is a powerful tool especially when it associates a product with a desire and instinct we already have."
Does what we create help people to live a better happier life? Does it protect the precious world we live in? We have a great responsibility when we create, market and sell things – we need to make sure we carry that responsibility well.
And then the final line of the video,
"Remember that old way didn’t just happen by itself. It’s not like gravity that we just gotta live with. People created it. And we’re people too. So let’s create something new."
We have created the system that we currently have. Does the current system protect our world? Does it help us to be happier? I don't think so.
Even though some people may think "there is no other way" we have to remember this: we created this system, and we can create a new one. We can find a new way.
We need passionate engineers working hard to create a cleaner and healthier world. We have to make sure that each decision we make – each product we produce – is helping us move towards that.
No, it is not easy. It is actually really difficult. It means forcing ourselves to reevaluate the "norms", to look at every decision we make in the light of the world around us. It means taking responsibility for our products, and fighting for what we believe in. It means constantly searching for better solutions.
I call it environeering: engineering for a better environment.
An environeer wants to change the world, and can. They live for energy savings, cleaner technology, recycling, water saving and much more. They are constantly seeking ways to create better products. They talk passionately about the world and how we impact on it. It is all about moving forward and embracing our passion for the world we live in. Most importantly, they care about people.
I want to get to know all the environeers out there. I want to talk to you, engage with you, and together work towards a happier, healthier life for everyone.
The advert ends with the line, "The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds."
There are a couple of ways to interpret the catch line and it really depends on how you view art and engineering (surprise, surprise). I would say the way that the advertising company wants you to interpret that statement is that BMW have highly engineered cars with wonderful aesthetics. My interpretation? Well, maybe less obvious and possibly more true to the artist's feelings.
Let us start by looking at the word "art". Here are two definitions from Dictionary.com,
art (n) : 1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. 2. skill in conducting any human activity: a master at the art of conversation.
So we have two (of many) definitions, one focussing on aesthetics (the "typical" association with art) and another focussing on skill at doing something. I am going to diverge a little to tell you a story about my wife and the dentist - yes maybe you think that is strange, but bear with me for a bit...
My wife really dislikes the dentist (is that applause I hear in the back row?) - until she met a lady dentist in Pretoria. Now the first thing that my wife normally tells a dentist when she sits down in the chair is how much she does not like them and how she does not understand why anyone would like to become a dentist. Luckily this tends to break the ice and lead to a good relationship :). So when the topic of, "Why would anyone want to become a dentist?" came up with this particular dentist she responded by saying that for her it was a form of art. She really took pride in how she did her work so that it would be both aesthetically pleasing and functional. Obviously it requires a skillful dentist to do this well.
So who of you would have said that a dentist was an artist? (that is, other than a torture artist ;) )
Maybe the question that needs to be asked is how far apart art and engineering actually are. In general it seems that people put them at opposite sides of the spectrum with art being all about creativity and engineering all logical and scientific. I think that what Joe Average does not realise is the degree of creativity that engineering requires and that is most likely due to engineers lack of ability to explain what we do (see my previous post on this).
For me the art of engineering is so much more than just creativity - it is something that goes to the core of function, aesthetics, and problem solving. I believe that we as engineers need to create solutions that actually enhance people's lives. The point where all of this comes together is the point were we as engineers can start to be artists.
It is more than function and more than beauty - true engineering art should take your breath away and change the way you see the world. That is the kind of art that I want to create.
I've just realised that I can't think of something off the top of my head that embodies those principals. I'm going to have to go scratch around and find some examples of what I think encompasses the art of engineering (I see a "Top Ten" post coming on). Do you have anything that you think stands out as an amazingly engineered product? Let me know by posting a comment!
A final thought - take the time to be an artist at what you do. This will enhance the lives of the people around you, and most importantly your own life, and the ripple effect of that is huge.
PS. If you're looking for a great dentist in Pretoria (or Tshwane, or whatever you want to call it), try Dr. Cornel Cronje (drop me a line if you want her contact details). __________________
PPS. I've added a "Current Reading" section to the links on the right so that you can check out what I'm (hopefully) enjoying at the moment. The link will take you through to the Exclusive Books website (I'm an affiliate) where you can buy books and have them delivered for free to your nearest Exclusive Books.
Currently the main work that I do is as a consulting and design engineer and I've been trying to beef up my marketing. I've realised that marketing engineering design and consulting can be a bit difficult for a couple of reasons.
The first reason?
Very few people actually understand what engineers do....and most of those that do, are engineers.
At first this caught me a little bit by surprise until I spent a little time thinking about it. I actually thought that more people would have an idea what engineers do (or can do, at least). I suppose that I shouldn't have been surprised - there are lots of reasons why people would have little or no knowledge of engineering. I would say that there are two main reasons, (1) engineers, and (2) the word engineer.
Firstly engineers....well what can I say? Ever been at a party or dinner with an engineer and someone has asked what they do? As soon as the words, "I'm an electronic engineer," roll off their tongue you can feel the fear as people wait in trepidation for some arcane explanation designed to impress a magna cum laude Ph.D graduate. During the explanation everyone's eyes roll back as they wait for the first chance to change the topic.
Put another way - we fail to explain ourselves well
The other problem is the word engineer and its multiplicity of meanings and interpretations. If you go look up the word engineer in the dictionary you'll find a number of meanings from,
engineer: "a person who runs or supervises an engine or an apparatus"
to something that I feel is closer to my definition,
engineer: "a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems"
As engineers we have not managed to create a clear definition of who we are and what we can do. And what is that really?
Well, one thing - engineers solve problems.
I'll be touching on some solutions to these issues in the future, along with my other marketing struggles - for now, send me some thoughts on this (and other reasons why engineering is not understood) - I'd love to hear them.
