Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1467185
20 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2022 school—learning how to manage a customer or manage your end-product. We've recently hired two new engineers. We're teaching them how to communicate with customers and get the requirements they're looking for. Kolar: It's a lot of best practices. For us, we have a lot of manuals, guidelines, and best practices as the standard. Even if you aren't getting the information, being able to manage your cus- tomer, explain the impact of not getting the information, and the assumptions you are making, is very important. Otherwise, I would fall back on: quality matters most. Don't take shortcuts, and don't slap it together. If I knew nothing about this design, would my directions stand alone? Will the fabricator know what to do? Will the assembler know what to do with- out having to ask questions? Matties: ose are great checkpoints, for sure. Grunwald: You must be able to look at it from the perspective of the fabricator and that's not common knowledge for the typical designer. Kolar: at is true. We train our designers over time and get them involved in that process, so they understand how the board is built. What's the actual process? It's not just what you can do with your tool. It's how physics works and how the actual chemistry of the process works. Many young designers and engineers don't understand the "sandwich" of how a board is made or the impact and the cost of via struc- tures. Shaughnessy: You're basically brain-dumping onto these new designers because they can't possibly know most of this stuff early in their careers. Kolar: Yes. We are in a unique position because we do a lot of manufacturing from our own designs. Since I tend to be the escalation point, if I get a phone call at night with a fab ques- tion, I try to share that "love" with the design- ers, so that they're learning from the process. We encourage our project managers to go back and tell the designer, "Here's what I encoun- tered in DFM. Here's what we learned from this, and let's do this differently next time." We try to share that knowledge and complete that cycle, so they're learning. Grunwald: Some of it comes down to the com- fort level of the designer. If they haven't dealt with fab shops directly, they may not know what they need to ask or how they need to manage things. Making a relationship with fab shops that you use regularly helps in the end. If your purchasing department is the one that picks shops, knowing the couple shops you will use and building a relationship with them can be key to being able to feel comfortable asking those questions. Matties: Any final thoughts? Kolar: It can be very frustrating and demotivat- ing to work in a vacuum, so just try to accept reality: "ey didn't give me enough input, so they're probably going to have problems in fab. I will do the best I can do." Matties: ere are probably therapy groups for that (laughs). Even if you aren't getting the information, being able to manage your customer, explain the impact of not getting the information, and the assumptions you are making, is very important.