Mechanical engineer: how to work faster? 11

[EighthBen]

I am a mechanical engineer in a wood sawmill company, I am designing various machines. I use solidworks for my design. The problem is this: I am not satisfied by the speed I design things. Here are some aspects I analyzed and noticed:

1. I always try to make the model as "full" as possible - including all bolts, chains, and anything else. This is essential for generating BOMs correctly, and also avoiding design mistakes due to things that were "imagined" differently than they really are. Any decrease in model detail would result in more mistakes (previous engineers, like 3-4 people have perfectly showed how not designing something leads to the need of fixing the final product with angular grinder in the workshop, making much more mess than use). I don't think I can save anything here.
2. I use all the productivity tools: keyboard shortcuts, best-practice design tools and strategies, PDM, fast hardware computer, two monitors, 3d mouse, I know the software deeply (including that I have passed several SW certificates). I don't think I can increase anything the speed here.
3. I have a fair amount of experience in the things I design - I don't have to spend too much time on the phone consulting the suppliers, or the machinery guys/welders to make the design better, and so on. I mean, I don't get stuck often during the design. I don't think I can do anything faster on this.
4. Of course, there are times when I have to do the research: check the solutions of the competitors, consult the suppliers about the things I haven't used before, perform FEA simulation, etc. Also, I sometimes have to explain things to the welders/machinery guys/assembly guys - about what have I designed and what is the intent of those solutions. But - obviously - I will never know everything, and so these communications will always be needed. I don't think I can rapidly save any time here.

Besides, I think I can say that I make fairly little amount of mistakes. I check, and I check, and then I check things again. I must admit I lose some time here (absolutely not significant amount of time, but it adds up a little), but design mistakes would make much, much longer to fix during the manufacturing process compared to the model, so I wouldn't like to risk the increased amount of the mistakes for winning a few hours on design checks.

That being said, I feel stuck in the situation. Even a fairly simple machines takes 1-2 weeks or more to design, and when I look at the finished model - and I can't believe it took that much time. I have no idea how can I make it faster.

If anybody here, the more experienced engineers, could share their productivity strategies, that would be great. I am pretty sure I can not win anything on the software level (as I said I think I can say I know Solidworks fairly well), but maybe some global design strategy could be used to save a few percent of the overall design process.

Thank you for your advice

 

[KENAT]

What if any formal processes do you have in place?

For low volume work, the typical implementation of things like DFx, FMEA and all the other PLC alphabet soup tends to add quite a bit of overhead burden while having limited pay back.

I am not saying you shouldn't have any process, I'm saying they need to be the right processes implemented at the right scale and probably be quite flexible.

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[Tunalover]

EighthBen-

Welcome to the "Do it Right the First Time" Club. I assert that it ALWAYS takes someone longer IN THE SHORT RUN to do things if they: a) do it so that it won't need to be redone later and
b) spend the setup time it takes to make the next design go well and go quickly.

Of course it takes longer to do something in the short run. But in the LONG RUN you will win out with optimum processes, all the right information at your fingertips, and an efficient, methodical, thorough and sufficiently-documented approach.

I like to work this way but inevitably the "results by next quarter" management fixation does not reward long-run efficiency and a strong professional infrastructure (built over time) that produces robust, well-documented designs meeting all requirements and cost goals.

It is a damn shame how managers know to the minute how long it took to turn out a first design revision but do not have the maturity or desire to quantify how long it takes to fix a problem (e.g. missing dimensions, outdated industry standards, over-simplified drawing views, missing but necessary details) and revise the design until it is buried deeply in the production process (or with the customer) where it is so painful, expensive, embarrassing and time-consuming to fix. In their minds all this downstream work is just the cost of doing business. There are always people who do things "quick and dirty" who are richly rewarded. Rarely is a guy rewarded for preparedness and doing the job right the first time even if he can turn out better designs faster in the long run. I've been caught in the aftermath of so many "quick and dirty" types and it's no fun sweeping up behind them.

If anyone out there knows of a business that has such maturity and foresightedness please get my contact information from my profile and tell me who it is (confidentially of course). I want to work there!




Tunalover

 

[Dave K]

At a past employer, we had a saying, "There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but always enough overtime to fix it".

-Dave

NX 9, Teamcenter 10

 

[KENAT]

Tunalover, with the whole 'fail fast' philosophy being grossly miss applied all over the place - good luck finding that Nirvana.

However, you make a good point kudos to the OP for appearing to be diligent and conscientious about doing a good job first time.

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[TheTick]

Take the time to talk to your "customers", the people using the results of your work. Are you giving them what they really need? Are you spending too much time on things they don't need?

One of the dangers of engineering design is that everyone wants to push off their documentation to your drawings. They want "one document to rule them all". Are you adding information that is supposed to be documented elsewhere? Are you telling people how to do their jobs? These kinds of things must be purged.

 

[tbuelna]

I have seen both ends of the spectrum at companies I have worked at when it comes to the engineering budget allotted by management for a given project. There were projects where management's bid included nothing for engineering costs, just so they could get the contract. So there was pressure to minimize the hours spent on engineering work. I have also worked on projects where the engineering was covered on a cost-plus basis. So there was no incentive to get the job done quickly.

 

[EighthBen]

Thank you everybody for your time and the input to this discussion. I apologize for my late reply, I was very busy last days. I shall now try to answer post-by-post.
PS - I definitely see the need to improve the interface of this forum for better quoting possibility ...

 

[EighthBen]

TheTick (Mechanical)
1 Aug 16 22:28
One of the hardest parts of design for new designers to get a grip on is appropriate level of detail. There's a time for broad strokes and a time for needle-fine detail.

You seem to know a lot of the fine points of design and your design tools (e.g. SolidWorks). That's a good start, but it seems like you lack a framework for defining and starting a project and moving it through its stages of development. (At least you didn't think enough of it to mention.)

This is true. I have noticed myself that I quite often tend to use too much detail at the beginning of the design process, and if changes appear - certain amount of this work is lost. I shall try to improve this behavior of mine. Thank you for the advice.

 

[EighthBen]

3DDave (Aerospace)
2 Aug 16 00:31
There are two means of going faster - either making the parts of the task go faster or replace them/eliminate them entirely with different parts.

Were I hired as a consultant** for your problem, the first thing I would work on making a complete survey of what the final output is required to be like, what the type of input ordinarily given is, and what steps are required going from one to the other. Then we could look at what you think can go faster/ is currently unsatisfactory. When that flow is understood it's possible to see useless tasks and eliminate them and to look at characterizing the amount of time spent on the major tasks with an eye to both entire steps plus any common functions that are repeated across steps.

Yes, learning to ask appropriate questions at the beginning of the design process in order to understand the task better is a must. I am doing my best on it. Also, as I said, first should be the basic design, and details should be the last. I sometimes mix this order.

 

[EighthBen]

tbuelna (Aerospace)
2 Aug 16 02:57
"Even a fairly simple machines takes 1-2 weeks or more to design, and when I look at the finished model - and I can't believe it took that much time."

Why do you feel spending 40-80 engineering hours to do a professional job designing and modelling a piece of machinery is excessive? Is your employer telling you that you need to work faster? Or are the machines you design incredibly simple devices, or slight modifications of existing products?

Consider that since we now rely heavily on the fidelity/accuracy of digital CAD models for functions like analysis, QA, manufacturing, etc, it is very important to make sure the CAD model is 100% accurate when released. Better to do the job right than to do it fast.

Exact hours spent on the project design depends on the complexity of it. I often get a feedback from my boss that it takes too long for me, and I often agree (although not always, because sometimes he changes the design intent after I am almost finished with every single nut). Surely, better to do the job the first time, but it is even better to make it faster AND right. Now we are here discussing how to do that

 

[EighthBen]

jlnsol (Mechanical)
2 Aug 16 07:35
There is a command in SolidWorks that I use as much as possible to speed up the design process.
It's the Pack-and-go command. Do you use it often?

Yes, I take the advantage of it when appropriate. Furthermore, there are functions in PDM like "Move tree" and "Copy tree" - sometimes even better than PAG.

 

[EighthBen]

(Mechanical)
2 Aug 16 09:37
Unless you are being externally pressured to work faster I suspect that you are needlessly beating yourself up. What proportion of the total project cost and overall build time is being consumed by your work - I suspect it will be a fairly low percentage. Good design is an iterative process and it will take time. A few hours optimizing you designs so they are quicker, cheaper and easier to build is time well spent - if you are mainly assembling standard parts it sounds as if you have everything covered.
Finally, and without wanting to appear negative, if you work quicker what will you do with the time you have saved?

My engineering usually takes about 25-50 percent of an overall project time. We have about 15 people in manufacturing, so they build the product fairly quick. Again, we (me?) are here just to find some ideas how to improve the efficiency of constructing and engineering ...

 

[EighthBen]

jlnsol (Mechanical)
2 Aug 16 11:21

You call yourself a machanical engineer but you are not!
You are an assistant planner, an assistant purchaser and an assistant outsourcer and also an engineer.
This may sound silly but I read you use PDM.
Synonyms for PDM more often than not are: time-consuming, frustrating, bookkeeping, redundant, managers toy, innovation kill and so on.

I don't know what are you talking about. PDM is a file management system with lots of useful functions. It definitely is NOT time-consuming, frustrating or anything else negative. Furthermore, it is actually inevitable.

 

[KENAT]

From your responses, it sounds like implementing design 101 more robustly, i.e. "Know Thy Requirement", may help.

Additionally sounds like a design review step after you have your general concept but before you get too far into details may be a good idea.

Thinking about details early on isn't a bad thing as it can avoid costly re-designs later to address 'details' but, ideally you shouldn't invest too much time in details that might change as the design process progresses.


BTW, all those quotes could have been in one post - not sure why separate posts.

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[EighthBen]

Jboggs (Mechanical)
2 Aug 16 17:58
One word I have not seen in this discussion is "modularity". By asking the initial question you are indicating that you are trying to be aware of and examine your own activities. In all my (many) jobs I have found ways to save time or energy by just looking for any time I am repeating some task. You already said you use previously designed components and sub-assemblies. That's good, but, are you looking ahead? All the time? Are you designing everything with the intent that some future version of your work will be used more than once? What dimensions are likely to change in the future? What other dimensions are affected by those changes? Can you design it so that by just changing one dimension you also change all the others that are affected by it? Do you design it with possible future configurations in mind? Do you organize these pre-planned components and sub-assemblies in some easily searchable database?

Yes, I take into account the possible future designs, and I use my modeling technique a good as I can for that. But to be fair - all my designs are pretty unique, so this actually doesn't save me anything. I do it, because you never know when something is going to change, but it wouldn't save my time.

 

[EighthBen]

tunalover (Mechanical)
3 Aug 16 02:43
EighthBen-

Welcome to the "Do it Right the First Time" Club. I assert that it ALWAYS takes someone longer IN THE SHORT RUN to do things if they: a) do it so that it won't need to be redone later and
b) spend the setup time it takes to make the next design go well and go quickly.

a) yes, appropriate amount of time spent on the project is actually a time save. I do my best to perform it, and I actually do fairly little amount of mistakes
b) I should think more about the setup and design strategy before starting the design project. I agree, I will think how can I do it. Thank you for the advice.

 

[EighthBen]

TheTick (Mechanical)
3 Aug 16 14:49
Take the time to talk to your "customers", the people using the results of your work. Are you giving them what they really need? Are you spending too much time on things they don't need?

My customer is my boss. We design machines and then use it in our own sawmill, we do not sell it to third party.

 

[EighthBen]

From your responses, it sounds like implementing design 101 more robustly, i.e. "Know Thy Requirement", may help.

Additionally sounds like a design review step after you have your general concept but before you get too far into details may be a good idea.

Thinking about details early on isn't a bad thing as it can avoid costly re-designs later to address 'details', but ideally you shouldn't invest too much time in details that might change as the design process progresses.

After spending much effort on analyzing my work and it's efficiency for the last week, this is exactly what my conclusion is. Those three steps may be the (only?) key to improve the efficiency of my work. This discussion have surely helped me to crystallize this. Thank you again for participating in it.

 

[mikeneal]

Early on in my career I tried to work fast at the expense of accuracy and i missed some details. Lucky I had a older fantastic boss that sat me down and told me when i give you a task I am not impressed if you do it faster than I thought it would take. I do care if it has errors, rule number one is it has to be right. I have had that same discussion with almost every new grad I have worked with. I don't have much to add to the thread besides what has already been stated but kudos to the OP for wanting to increase his speed but don't be too hard on yourself.

 

[Jboggs]

I had a similar experience. This is not at all an excuse for missing a project deadline, but it is still a true statement: "Five years from now no one will know if the project was a week late, but they will by God know if it works!"