>In Bill's example about product development, there was an intelligent goal
>selected: a product that would appeal to the customer. They intelligently
>chose a way to get there; sometimes it didn't work as planned (it WORKED, but
>often not as well as desired), but each step supplied them more information to
>work with. More intelligent decisions were made.
Hmm, you're missing the point. Yes, the product was designed. Prototypes
were produced and tested (although some of the test methodology was
laughable). But the _process_ which led from drawings and prototypes to
production machines on the loading dock was the result of trial and error.
As such it included some redundancies, some "missing parts" and no
disciplined means of implementing changes. For example, my predecessor Ned
discovered that the power wiring had been done in a fashion that was
appropriate for machines with no electronics, but totally inappropriate for
CNC. The grounds were all strung together in a daisy chain. If the
hydraulic power supply or the spindle started while the computer was on,
the the resulting surge in the ground circuit would usually cause the
computer to crash. Ned changed the wiring to bring the grounds together in
a star configuration and that solved the problem. He got the new drawings
produced and thought he was done. But Charley, one of the electrical
designers looked at the new drawings, did some back-of-an-envelope
calculations and figured out how much extra wire the new configuration
would use (and therefore how many extra $$$ it would cost). He was in the
process of changing everything back to the way it had been when Ned found
out what was going on and stopped him. No one had thought to put together
a simple log for documenting the reasons for design changes. Companies
that want to continually perform well, year in and year out give as much
attentiuon to designing their development process as they do to designing
the products themselves.
Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
1346 W. Fairview Lane
Rochester, MI 48306
(810) 652 4148