Below are several real-world case histories. The stories are true. The companies are real. And in each case these companies benefitted immeasurably from the foresight of www.BarryHoweDesign.com. The cases include glaring design errors that were caught in time to avert disaster, and a few that unfortunately weren’t. To avoid offending the innocent along with the guilty, and to maintain the moral, ethical, and legal high ground, I chose to keep the company names anonymous. It is enough for me that they know who they are.
Case Histories:
#1) Leading Scientific Instrumentation Manufacturer: “All the king’s horses”
A long time ago, in an engineering department far, far away, I was assigned the simple task of creating working drawings for a complex adjustable vacuum fitting that had been collaboratively designed by two mechanical engineers: In the course of double-checking the dimensions I immediately noticed what, to me, was a glaring error. The parts, as designed, couldn’t possibly fit together. This was in spite of having been co-designed by two highly paid MEs, and subsequently reviewed by the Product Manager. I didn’t know it then, but this would become a recurring experience in my long career. I intervened in time to stop a large production run that would have wasted not only $30,000 in material and labor costs, but also saved the six weeks which would have been lost waiting for parts that would have been nothing more than scrap. A second six-week fabrication cycle would also have meant serious delays in shipping product to customers, who in turn had other processes and installations dependant upon timely delivery.
Had I not discovered and corrected this mistake, the total cost would have been much, much higher, and would have included immeasurable harm to the company’s reputation in the industry, and most importantly, with its customers.
Such is the cascading and compounding affect of design errors. That single act of simple diligence had paid for my entire year’s salary, and then some. Very early in my career, I had proved myself invaluable to an employer. I also discovered that I posessed what I would later learn was a rare talent.
#2) Theatrical Lighting Manufacturer: “Polio and Wheelchairs”
This was a company for whom I began as a consultant, after which they invited me to join their full-time staff. Their product line consisted of programmable lighting consoles that had been originally designed by passionate but inexperienced designers, literally in a garage. My first major project was a redesign of their core product to improve its manufacturability, reliablity and serviceability. I did a stellar job. I introduced the concept of modularity, with subassemblies for the CPU and Power Supply. In addition to the enormous benefits of mass-producability, streamlined bench testing, and super-simple field replacement for zero down-time, these modules were also easily integrated into new products being developed.
The new design quickly and dramatically broke all records for manufacturing, shipping and servicing, and of course, profitability. Unfortunately, I had apparently set an undesired precedent: While I had been busy with that redesign, the marketing department had been secretly busy with the Electrical Engineers, developing the next-generation product. The same inexperienced designers who had created the original nightmare had already completed the next one. I was astonished to see all the same mistakes made again! It was as if I had shown this company the cure to Polio, and they just wanted to keep making wheelchairs. With their new system already debugged and functional, I was charged with “applying” a package design around what was little more than a sprawling breadboard of disjointed components. So, I quickly followed a major success with a resounding failure. With absolutely no thought given to things like internal layout, electrical cabling and component interconnects, power supply location, air flow and cooling, EMI/RFI factors or rational subassemblies, the next-gen product was a nightmare to manufacture, test, and service. It proved extremely difficult and expensive to produce, difficult to troubleshoot, slow to ship, and extremely unreliable in the field, doing serious damage to the young company’s formerly solid reputation. It was a modern-day equivalent to the flintlock rifle; utterly lacking modularity, and no two were built the same. This was especially ironic, considering that the product had been intended to be the flagship, the “Cadillac” of the product line – it ended up an Edsel.
Third time’s a charm
Too late to redesign that console, the company was stuck with it. However, I had finally convinced them of the error of their ways. I was given carte blanche to design their next big product. It was an entire family of entry-level lighting consoles, designed for the low-cost, high-volume market. I won’t burden the reader with the entire story. But needless to say, this design ended up being a *phenomenal* success. I again broke all cost, manufacturing, testing, shipping, reliability and serviceability records, not to mention winning an array of industry awards and accolades. The product was directly responsible for the company’s first $100-million year. After a few more such successes, my career eventually led me to leave that company. As of this writing (12 years later!), that product and the numerous variants made possible by my hyper-modular design, is *still* at the core of that company’s product offering. Since my departure, they have never again produced such a record-breaking, industry-shaking, wildly-successful and profitable design.
#3) Medical Instrument Manufacturer: The “That’s what prototypes are for,” weakest link, and GIGO syndromes
I was hired by this company as a consultant to perform design work on a new Thermal Printer. This printer would make use of an existing injection-molded “Platen Assembly,” which functioned as a cover for the paper tray and included a rubber roller to press the paper against the thermal print head. The company had no accurate drawings or CAD models for the Platen. Since it was at the core of the new design, it was critical to create an accurate model around which to base the rest of the printer’s complex geometry. In order to let me concentrate on the overall industrial design and mechanical engineering, the company assigned their staff mechanical engineer to model the Platen. I explained that the successful fit and function of the rest of the design was completely dependant upon the accuracy of the Platen geometry. He assured me he understood, and shortly provided me with a model. As my design neared completion, the company decided to redirect my activites to another important project, letting the staff ME complete the remaining details of the printer. Soon the first prototypes appeared, and it was not pretty. The parts didn’t fit together at all. They couldn’t even be assembled. The company had wasted four weeks and thousands of dollars on 25 piles of worthless junk.
With a reputation to uphold, I immediately reviewed the finished printer design. Confident in my own work, I knew exactly where to begin looking for the problem. My suspicions were quickly proven correct: The CAD model for the existing Platen wasn’t even close to accurate. In fact, it was grossly incorrect. Overall length was off by more than .125″. Critical feature sizes and locations were clearly “fudged,” or just wild guesses. Overall width, too, was way off, as were the subtle characteristics of the part’s draft. The net effect was an abomination. These errors had telegraphed throughout the entire printer’s design, such that *nothing* fit together or functioned. When I diplomatically inquired with the engineer regarding his Platen geometry, he responded that “it was no big deal.” He boldly stated “That’s what prototypes are for.” Where I had been prepared to fall on my own sword, he felt no shame or responsibility for the failure. He was actually proud of himself! This was a classic case of GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. This was neither my first or last encounter with such a mentality.
I cringe at those words: “That’s what prototypes are for.” My philosophy has always been that the purpose of a prototype is to prove the design works, not to discover why it doesn’t! As a well-compensated professional, I consider it my duty to get it right the first time. After all, isn’t that the very definition of “professional?” Design is not a game of pin the tail on the donkey, where we simply hope to get it close. Nor is it an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters who may eventually get it right.
Fortunately, some software problems cropped up which delayed the release of the printer. As my contract wound down, I submitted a formal status report to the manager about the printer, along with a line-by-line road map of corrections it needed, starting with the faulty Platen geometry. Even given my specific roadmap to fix the design, that engineer’s ego wouldn’t allow him to follow my recommendations. After many, many more prototype cycles, it still didn’t work. The company ended up firing him, and contracted me again the following year to finally correct the many design errors. A three-month project had taken 16 months, cost many times the original budget, untold dollars in opportunity cost, and again, did immeasurable damage to the company’s reputation. (The situation was seized upon by competitors, who used the story to undermine the company and steal sales). It is impossible to calculate the full cost of such a bungle.
