Even worse, I've had clients come in with correct notions that simply weren't a very good way to do it. It's usually simple to explain to a client why the impossible is impossible. But it's often nigh impossible to explain to a client why there's a better (and often counterintuitively better) way to do it, one that won't lead you down the path of wrack and ruin comitting to his requirements. Often the client believes it's your job to execute his desired design more cheaply or safely than he could on his own. That is, he wants you to work some sort of unknown engineering magic on it within his artificial constraints, something that usually isn't in the cards and often means the difference between making and losing money.

Hypothetically you'd have the customer come in thinking he needs a spacecraft equipped with six feet of lead for a radiation shield, and he wants you to wave some magic wand and figure out how to get it off the ground.

The trick in that case is to carefully nudge the client toward "minor" (i.e., sweeping) changes in his design, and some world-class acting to make him think your epiphanies during the consulation are the result of his brilliant suggestions.

So you can say that you've just heard of some miraculous material (high-density polyethylene) that does a better job than lead, and you've been waiting for just such a commission to be your flagship deployment for it. What a great stroke of luck.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Even worse, I've had clients come in with correct notions that simply weren't a very good way to do it. . . . Often the client believes it's your job to execute his desired design more cheaply or safely than he could on his own. That is, he wants you to work some sort of unknown engineering magic on it within his artificial constraints, something that usually isn't in the cards and often means the difference between making and losing money.

One of my instructors referred to these as "implied solutions," and advised us to be wary of them.

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--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

The trick in that case is to carefully nudge the client toward "minor" (i.e., sweeping) changes in his design, and some world-class acting to make him think your epiphanies during the consulation are the result of his brilliant suggestions.

I'n guessing that you employ females for this part?

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

I had someone from marketing come in one time with a proposal for a design which, among other things, had a linear bolt hole pattern that consisted of one thru-hole every six inches repeated ten times. The pattern started three inches from the edge of a base plate which was 48 inches in width. I pointed out that the last two holes would be a snap to machine.

I have hundreds if not thousands of similar examples.

Funny how the marketing reply to such information is usually a variation on "Well, you don't have to get technical!"

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I have hundreds if not thousands of similar examples.

As do we all. I remember when a sales manager browbeat some assembly techs into rerouting some cable bundles to give them a more "pleasing" arrangement, bending them tightly in the process. He was not pleased when I charged $20,000 of replacement cabling to his budget and the vice president of engineering gave him a very stern lecture on minimum bend radius.

Funny how the marketing reply to such information is usually a variation on "Well, you don't have to get technical!"

To which I would usually say something like, "One of us has to."

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Anywhere you have users or customers interacting with technical situations.

So many times, I've had users say "we need to automate this". Their only rationale is that a computer is better without knowing why.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

To be fair, in my work environment, we say "we need to automate this," because it helps eliminate human error from repetetive processes, and saves LOTS of time.

CJSF

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Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

Yes; many times this is true, especially for repetative processes.
But; In my experience, it usually includes "the computer should make the decisions" without any knowledge as to how those decisions are made.

And, even with repetative processes, automating something without a complete understanding usually results in something going horribly wrong when a simple exception occurs. In other words, we end up automating the problem.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Yup. My development team calls that the "Magic Button".

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[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

Well, thankfully the production team I belong to has a process that tries to minimze those problems. I can see where the pitfalls would be, generally speaking, though.

CJSF

__________________
Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

And, even with repetative processes, automating something without a complete understanding usually results in something going horribly wrong when a simple exception occurs.

I will die an early death from automating some applications...

Any kind of process realization requires a trade-off. I agree with what has been said; if you don't know the properties of your process and the properties of a proposed implementation, and take take care to match them carefully, you will be unhappy.

Sometimes it's certainly possible to automate a process to make it easier, but the cost to build and maintain the automation is far more than the ongoing cost of an inefficient process. This often happens when organizations buy too literally into the internal customer philosophy; downstream "customer" steps optimize themselves at the expense of upstream "provider" steps when the optimization should take place at a more encompassing perspective.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Sorry to help get this OT, but it wandered into my realm...

Anyway, in a feeble attempt to get back OT. Last night I heard some journalistic muckity muck (I caught it in passing so I have no details) talk about the change in the way news is reported. It is far easier and cheaper not to go after a story. Not only is investigative journalism expensive to maintain, but the risks are much greater.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Yep, facts are annoying little things that often only get in the way. Life is far simpler if you just ignore them.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Theory of Zombie Relativity:
1) Everyone Else is a Zombie relative to You
2) Whether or not it matters is related to the inverse square of the distance between their teeth and your brain
(Quoted from Demigrog)

Tell me about it.

Many times the IT and Design guys get together, create, and sell to middle management some kind of Rube Goldberg solution for a situation where, for instance, a simple poka-yoke fixture modification would have eliminated the problem at almost no cost.

The automated fix is almost always seen as being "sexy" and "cool" whereas the more effective fixture mod is seen as being "old technology" and "clunky". These are words that actually get batted about at meetings discussing these approaches.

Much better would be discussing what's "effective" while being the least expensive solution, i.e., "economical". Not "sexy" or "cool" but typically much better at assuring customer requirements and a heck of lot more profitable.

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

In another attempt to save this thread (it's probably too late), and the fact that I think we all have something to say about this, I broke off the conversation into a new thread in BABB over here .

And now back to our regularly scheduled talk about journalism.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)