Share this with every early-career engineer you know!
A very smart and eager young engineer I was mentoring asked me to review a drawing. He had specified extremely tight tolerances across the board. With a short conversation, I completely re-shaped his understanding of the role of the design engineer, as follows:
Me: “Why are these tolerances so tight?” / A: “I want the best part we can get.”
Me: “But what tolerances are necessary for the part to perform its function without issues?” / A: “I don’t know.”
Me: “Can any suppliers achieve the tolerances you have specified?” / A: “I haven’t checked.”
Then I explained that the goal in designing any component was to make it perform flawlessly at the best cost and with the surest supply. Overly tight specifications would make it harder to find suppliers who could make the part and would drive up costs. After that interaction, his entire approach changed. He was diligent with tolerance stack studies and simulations to determine the loosest tolerances that would still get the job done. As they say, “Anybody can make it work, it takes an engineer to make it work on a budget.”
CӔDENCE has specific workshops aimed at achieving engineering excellence such as Engineering Drawing Best Practices, Design for Assembly, Customer and Supplier Specification Gap Analyses, New Product Development, and Career Management Skills. Let us accelerate your team’s performance.
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