Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1190860
56 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2019 Beers: To me, it's the buy-in we have from management that the technology is good, and we need to keep up with technology. ISO is a great man- agement tool, as well as a quality system to keep things repeat- able. All manufac- turers want repeat- ability, and ISO is a good process for that. How do you have ISO in the engineer- ing department, and how do you make your designs ISO-compatible? That's where you just look at having your procedures in such a way that you can keep up with changing soft- ware and development in technology and let the engineers have the free rein to go; at least have the checks and balances for risk-based analysis. Shaughnessy: I haven't heard anyone put it that way before. What do you think is the answer? Should engineers get more involved with ISO standards? Beers: From a manufacturing standpoint, you want ISO. To me, it's the best way to produce things—when you have good ISO work in- structions, and things are done in a way that's repeatable every time, you ship out great prod- ucts. In the development cycle, engineers don't do the same thing every time. How do you doc- ument something when you're not doing it the same way every time? Shaughnessy: In some OEMs, the product is al- most custom every time. Beers: Right. To have an ISO procedure to adapt customization is huge. Your procedures need to have the guidelines for where the engineer- ing department goes, but not down to dotting the "Is" and crossing the "Ts" to box in en- gineers so they can't move ahead with new technology. You need process-based proce- dures that are flexible and designed to move forward. Shaughnessy: Is this something that you all dis- cuss a lot at your company? Beers: We have weekly and bi-annual meetings on ISO quality and how to keep the procedures moving forward, but it takes time and man- power to update procedures. And when you don't have an engineering mindset on your ISO team, how do they understand keeping proce- dures up to engineering standards? Shaughnessy: You would have to have a big en- gineering presence on the ISO team. It's coun- terintuitive because ISO exists in part to en- courage innovation. Beers: The big thing moving forward is to have engineering buy-in that this is important, but yet vague enough that you can move ahead. I don't know how else to say it. Shaughnessy: Because if you're too innovative, you run the risk that you might be out of ISO compliance, which is kind of the opposite of what ISO was supposed to do. Beers: ISO on the production side is great. From an engineering management risk-based analysis, I'm still trying to figure out how to get that incorporated through the whole com- pany rather than just to a production-based en- vironment. Shaughnessy: That's interesting. I'd like to see what our design engineer readers think about this. Beers: People should know that it is a concern. Shaughnessy: Roger, thanks for your time to- day. Beers: Thank you, Andy. DESIGN007