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Design007-Nov2021

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12 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2021 Feature Interview by the I-Connect007 Editorial Team In recent issues of Design007 Magazine, we've covered strategies for managing specific types of data. But in this issue, we're looking into data management techniques from a com- pany level. e I-Connect007 Editorial Team recently spoke with three PCB designers who have quite a bit to say about PCB data management: Altium's John Watson, and Bissell's Dugan Karnazes and Patryk Akhurst. ey discussed their data management philosophies, the need for detailed processes that fit each com- pany, and why data management techniques must undergo continuous improvement to be effective. Andy Shaughnessy: Dugan, would you please share your overall thoughts on data manage- ment, and we'll go from there? Dugan Karnazes: Coming from a consulting background, my first question, which shapes A PCB Design Data Management Overview who's managing the data, is "Who is your cus- tomer?" If you're managing data for a contract- ing situation, ultimately you must give all the files back to the customer. You hope that they have standards for how they're storing these things. e unfortunate reality that I saw is that many companies don't. Even though they specify how they want their files back (and the good ones will give you a list of everything that makes up a complete data package), oen they don't even enforce that. Many times, four months down the road, they'll ask for it again. So, who's the customer? What are their requirements, and what are your own higher requirements? When I was responsible for handing off a design to a customer, one company gave me a list of everything they wanted: "We want the PCB in this format. We want exports for the schematic libraries and a separate export for the footprint libraries." It made it easy. When I gave it to them, they were highly surprised because no one else had ever given it to them. I had other customers who said, "I don't even know what an RC filter is. Why are you asking

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