Design Reviews - best practices w' limited resources 3

[willcambridge]

Hi - my company is a new, small R&D contractor, primarily for gov (DOD, NIH, etc). We have had about a year of doing one-off prototypes, now we need to start doing real version control and design reviews. The problem - we don't have a lot of experience in what a design review should be! Who should be involved, what should be the focus, etc. A further problem is, I am really the only CAD and drafting guy at my company. My boss is the only mechanical guy. Beyond the two of us, who does the design review?? Obviously our VP and other senior engineers can add valuable comments, but it's not efficient for them to check tolerances, threads, etc. Can anyone suggest ideas for how we use people's time efficiently and review the important stuff carefully? Any input appreciated.

 

[rb1957]

if you're trying to control configuration, get a project engineer

i'd always thought that design reviews should be about the customer and supplier getting together to see how the supplier is meeting the customer's needs. these can be very difficult to control if you don't have a clear statement of work ... the engineers will keep coming up with ideas, the customer will want more and more, and the company will lose more and more !

if you're productionising your designs, find a production engineer,

 

[willcambridge]

True - hiring the right people is the key and should probably be pursued. Not sure how quickly that will happen, though, since the need is somewhat irregular. Thanks for the input.

 

[GBor]

willcambridge,

I used to work for a very large DoD contractor and am now a small engineering firm, so I've seen both sides of your situation. If you are in a sizable project, you may want to establish a "red team". This is an outside company or group of people that you pay to come in, review the customer specifications, compare their interpretation to your design, and provide you with feedback. This type of team has no motivation to do anything but help you improve your response.

If you are just talking about general practices, ISO standards and certification is a good place to start. Project engineers usually have a pretty good feel as RB1957 suggested.

Garland E. Borowski, PE
Borowski Engineering & Analytical Services, Inc.

http://www.borowskiengineering.com

 

[MintJulep]

Will,

There are plenty of big companies that don't have any idea what should be done in a design review either, so don't feel bad.

The most important thing is to have a complete, precise, unambiguous understanding of the functional requirements for whatever it is that you are designing.

Once you have that, the functional design review is a straight-forward matter of identifying how the design achieves each of the functional requirements.

You might want to consider "partnering" with whoever will be doing your manufacturing and assembly for a manufacturability review.

There are a number of books on how to do a design review, and the SAE offers courses on the subject.

 

[stanier]

Suggest you study the topic of value management and value engineering. There is heaps on the internet as it is a government initiative. This is more comprehensive than a design review. The detail you mentioned covers design checking more than review.

Contact your local engineering professional body and seek some mentors. Retired engineers may provide a wealth of experience at a reasonable cost. In fact payment may be in kind rather than monetary. Use of a director's holiday house or yacht for instance. Retirees are generally not interested in the money.

 

[TVP]

You should consider what definitions you want to use for "Design Review", etc. If the purpose is to review the design, meaning threads, dimensions and tolerances, potential manufacturing snags, etc., then you should assemble your entire team (CAD, project engineer/mechanical engineer, senior engineers, big boss, etc.) for thoroughly reviewing everything. If the purpose is the review the project status, assumptions about customer requirements, etc., then I would call this a "Project Review" and proceed the way others have outlined above.

 

[israelkk]

http://arioch.gsfc.nasa.gov/301/html/design.html

 

[MadMango]

I don't know how a DoD contractor would conduct a Design Review, and I don't know the capabilities of your company.

I would think you would want to include people from Marketing, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Assembly, Shipping, plus a representative from your Customer if this is not an internal Design Review. Together with Engineering, all of you should:

Verify the product meets all the design inputs from the customer.
Verify that the product is safe and easy to use.
Verify the product functions as designed.
Verify that product instructions are understandable and accurate.
Verify the product is cheap and easy to manufacture.
Verify that Manufacturing understands the projected quantities.
Verify the product is easy to handle and assemble.
Verify that long lead items are identified and Purchasing is aware of them.
Verify the product meets Marketing expectations.
Verify that product packaging for shipping is adequate.

Write down all attendees, all comments made, all “product enhancements” requested. After the Design Review, summarize all your notes into meeting minutes or an actual report, identify action items, schedule impact, etc, and send it out to all the attendees.

[green]"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."[/green]
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[ewh]

I agree with TVP as to who and what to include in a design review. Such a meeting could be held weekly (or as needed) to ensure that the project is moving in the right direction without any show stoppers.
MadMango's suggestion seems to be more of a Project review. To have such a review meeting every week would be overkill.

 

[GBor]

DoD reviews can be brutal. There are not only design reviews, but financial reviews if the project is large enough. There are program plans that require some type of Earned Value Management System (EVMS) tracking the financial to design effort with calculated bounds on what needs to reported due to too much, or even too little, cost associated with the work performed.

A Microsoft Project expert can lay out virtually everything you need (I'm sure there are other tracking tools, but I've used Project more extensively than I ever care to again). If the project is large enough and your company is in need of a review, I still recommend the "red team" or even a "mock review", where you bring in outside experts to drill you...I learned a great deal about what I didn't know from the mock drill.

Garland E. Borowski, PE
Borowski Engineering & Analytical Services, Inc.

http://www.borowskiengineering.com

 

[willcambridge]

Thanks all, this was helpful, especially the mention of the red team and the design/project review distinction. Best,

Will

 

[Jabberwocky]

http://www.pmpa.org/agent/desguide/design/index.htm

More of a drawings guide than a general design guide, but still some useful checklists.

 

[FACS]

There should be more than one design review.

Review the conceptual design

Review the proposed prototype

Review the actual prototype

Review the pre-production process

Review the pre-production samples

Final design review


Review for:
Conformity
Reliability
Servicability
Aesthetics
Functionality
Durability
Cost


Charlie

http://www.facsco.com

 

[imagitec]

You mentioned work for NIH, so you may already know about the FDA's Design Control Guidance For Medical Device Manufacturers. It includes a section on design reviews:

http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/comp/designgd.html#_Toc382720787

Rob Campbell, PE
Finite Monkeys -

http://www.livejournal.com/users/robcampbell