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Start with the Plan

9/1/2021

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Good engineering starts with a good plan with specific goals. The best engineers I have known are not the ones that are the smartest or most clever, but the ones who can distinguish between an engineering challenge for challenge sake and an actual problem that needs to be solved.
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I saw an Elon Musk video recently on the 5-step manufacturing process that had a quote I really appreciated: "The most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize a thing that should not exist"
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Use Test to Improve Design

8/30/2021

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Testing your device is important at all levels. Validation testing can help developers improve the design. Accelerated life testing can help improve the durability. Functional testing can help manufacturing improve yield. There are many ways testing can improve your product.
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Loyalty

8/30/2021

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There have been many times I have seen employees come and go at a client while we worked on their project. It is easy to think that building your “own team” means having more stability and loyalty. Project-based workers are sometimes viewed as if we are just passing through and not really invested in the project. A good service provider should bring as much or more loyalty as your direct employees.
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Expertise and Ego

8/30/2021

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When looking for help with your project, you need that unique combination of someone who brings expertise but also leaves their ego at the door and knows how to play nice with the rest of your team. That may seem like a unicorn, but some of us are pretty good at it, if I do say so myself, leaving my ego at the door.
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Do the Difficult Thing First

8/30/2021

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When starting a new project, there’s always a long list of tasks. Resist the temptation to do the easy tasks first. Instead, start with the most difficult part. This is the risk area. If it doesn’t work, the low-hanging fruit is pointless. Solving the hard part may change the direction for the project which could mean redoing easy tasks anyway.

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"Shoot the Engineer"

8/30/2021

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Engineering is never “done”. Engineers gonna engineer. You have probably never heard an engineer say “That’s perfect. There’s nothing more I would change. Ship it.” More likely, you hear “You know what this toilet seat needs is BlueTooth and a phone app.” 

Having well-defined criteria for completion is important to knowing when your product is ready. And that is functional criteria, not a list of engineering tasks. Minus that, the engineers will continue engineering endlessly.
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My first boss out of college always said “There comes a point in every project where you have to shoot the engineer.” A bit harsh, perhaps. And just to be clear, he never actually did that to my knowledge. The point was well taken and I have made an effort during my career to focus on the business case for the project, not just the engineering perspective.
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Rather than shooting them, I have a better suggestion: distract them with the next shiny engineering challenge. Buy them a dev kit from SparkFun so they can play around with something new. Or ask them if they know anything about ______ (literally any piece of technology). That should keep them busy long enough for you to ship your product.
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Plan for Test Early

8/11/2021

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Engage your test engineering team as part of your design process. Don’t wait to finish the design before planning for test.

​During you development cycle, you should also develop a testing strategy and a test specification. The earlier in your design process the better. Often there are design choices that can make testing easier with little effort.
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Remote Working During COVID

8/28/2020

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COVID-19 has brought us all some interesting challenges. Out is the old daily routine, replaced with new ways of working and communicating.

Fortunately, for most engineers, we can do much of our work with just a computer. 
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One of the biggest challenges is that sometimes we need access to hardware. Having direct access to an ATE system, or other device used to be as easy as walking into a lab. Working remotely has made us come up with other methods.

At S5, we embraced the shift to remote work. We upgraded our VPN system to improve remote connection to hardware at the office. I turns out that a lot of times walking to the lab wasn't necessarily required, it was just convenient.

We have done plenty of work remotely for many years. However, customers often seemed to regard that as second best and still wanted us on site frequently. We have been pleased to see once reluctant customers embracing remote work. We are no longer the "outside team" to employees working on-site; we are just all part of "the team." In an odd way, being distant has brought some of the teams closer.

How have you coped with the challenges during this time? Has it changed your view of work?

Here is a great blog post from NI with some tips for working remotely.
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Publishing to Kindle

8/18/2020

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​Kindle has removed one of the impediments or excuses for not writing that novel or theoretical engineering (is there such a thing?) treatise. Never again can we use the fear of rejection from publishers, the long-involved publishing process or the hidden cost of publishing as reasons not to write,
because with Kindle, it’s easy and free.
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​Once you have that prize-winning book written and edited, just follow the wizard. You’ll need an
Amazon account (very easy to accomplish) and your banking information (so you can get paid). Watch
this video and get started. Now, you’re on the way to joining Stephen King and Stephen Hawking (even if
your name isn’t Stephen) as an author.

Go forth and write...
Related:
  • When Pigs Fly - the Kindle story written by the S5 Solutions Business Development Manager.
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When Pigs Fly

8/11/2020

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The COVID pandemic has made us all discover new ways of getting by. Eric Frederick, the S5 Solutions Business Development Manager, decided to flex his writing muscles. He has released his story, which is available on Kindle.

The author's own review:
"It ain't Shakespeare but it might cure your insomnia.  It's just 56 pages, just so you know before you invest 99 cents."

​Similar to "I hear You Paint Houses", the basis for the crime film "The Irishman", When Pigs Fly explores how a young man becomes a criminal and is then involved in the Kennedy assassination and cover-up. Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby and David Ferrie are central to this fictitious account which is bound to entertain anyone interested in the JFK conspiracy. If you like to speculate about what happened on 11/22/63, you’ll like When Pigs Fly.
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Related:
  • Publishing to Kindle - how you can publish your book on Kindle
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S5 Solutions, Inc.
LabVIEW & ATE, Test Systems, Software & Electrical Engineering Services located near Seattle, WA.


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  • Engineering
    • Product Development
    • Custom Software Development
    • Automated Test Equipment (ATE) >
      • What is ATE?
  • Case Studies
  • Knowledge Base
    • ALOHA
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    • LabVIEW & TestStand >
      • LabVIEW Basics
      • TestStand Basics
      • Learning LabVIEW
      • Getting Started with OOP
    • Blog
  • Contact