To the best of my knowledge, systems analysis is what was practiced by Richard Riehle in Office Space.
I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
But we have to make sure we don't get the wrong idea about systems analysis from this movie. LOL
Enter Rod Bell, who explains the science of systems analysis in a simple (though LONG) list:
Analyst confers with and studies users.
Analyst documents current practices/procedures.
Users review analyst's documentation; questions/clarifications to ensure that users understand analyst's description of as-is.
Users ask for changes/additions/etc. as necessary to produce as-is document that they can sign off on.
Repeat analyst/user loop until users sign off on as-is description.
Analyst produces draft will-be using same documentation style as the as-is.
Analyst meets with IT *not* for detailed response, but for first-cut deal-killer objections on IT's part.
Analyst revises proposed will-be if and only if s/he cannot gain conditional ok from IT.
Analyst takes proposed will-be to users, with explanation that this is a "wish-list" will-be; there is no way to know if it will be technically feasible (though it appears to be) or too expensive or whatever, i.e., other stakeholders have not been consulted yet.
Users give analyst feed-back, loop through revisions if necessary, until a users sign off on proposed will-be.
Analyst modifies documentation, as necessary, to clarify for IT.
Analyst presents to IT, clarifies as necessary to ensure IT's understanding of will-be.
IT either accepts assignment or suggests/demands changes because it's too hard/expensive/time-consuming thus beyond anticipated scope.
If IT considers will-be is beyond anticipated scope, other stakeholders are consulted to see if scope can be expanded *or*, if it cannot, what reductions from user wish-will-be should be made?
May or may not be lots of negotiation/discussion here, if gap bewteen user-approved will-be and resource availability (or timetable) is too great. But here and only here is the place to get that straight, otherwise the PM or somebody gets blamed when it doesn't work out as expected.
Assuming no insuperable barriers, analyst does shuttle diplomacy between users and IT until a mutually signed-off will-be document exists. Note that this document may include specific screens, reports, user interfaces, etc., as deemed necessary by analyst to ensure the user will-be is fully understood by IT, and if IT wants to change those items, that's part of the negotiations prior to sign-off.
This document then drives the remainder of the project plan and schedule.
Let's face it: many companies TALK like "our people are our most valuable resource," but they ACT like money is more important than people or things. It therefore should come as no surprise to any engineer that those who bring the money in (the marketers) and those who parcel out the money (the finance guys) are more highly paid and valued than those who deal with people (like human resources) or those who deal with things (like engineers).
There is a chance that we engineers can live with this state of affairs, if we believe that our lives are enriched by nerdly activities like taking things apart. We DO believe this, but many of us want the money and respect too. Those of us who want the money are drawn toward MBAs or entrepreneurial careers. That can be a cure for our natural tendency to be so drawn to things that we forget what dealing with people is like.
Some of us think we're smarter than everyone else because of our problem-solving skills. I think I'm plenty smart, but I realize that others have smarts and many others can do things I can't do. It is possible, though, that some of us would have an easier time doing the jobs of non-engineers than the non-engineers would have doing our jobs. (I'm serious, here. LOL) Those of us with multiple types of intelligence are sometimes sucked into management or consulting careers. Our biggest problem in that case is becoming impatient with others who don’t have such a range of skill.
So why is it we are considered geeks and nerds and are given so little respect by the world at large? Some of us think it's because we just don't know when the rest of the world is bored by the stuff we love. If we can’t see the eyes becoming glazed, then no, we won't know when to stop.
Engineers have this reputation of being unable to communicate to others. It's not always deserved, but enough people hold it that they are actually surprised to come across an engineer who is good at writing and speaking. Those engineers are sometimes drawn to consulting careers as well, or technical sales.
If we have any of these other skills at all, it separates us from the engineers who are pure number-crunchers. But... even among the "pure" engineers are some who are more analytical, and some who are more design-oriented, and some who love to test things. Those are three different types of engineer – and there may be more than that, and there are degrees of each.
Mary Anne Bitetto on Small Manufacturers using Outsourcing
Mary Anne Bitetto was assigned the following question in her management class: discuss why the manufacturing sector in the US has been losing jobs to other nations. Her answer, which I thought showed some insight, follows:
So far, a lot of the focus in this discussion has been on medium-sized to larger companies. Some primary goals for these corporations have been established: cutting costs and avoiding strict US environmental policies. Small businesses, however, are left out of the picture. The increasingly globalized economy, particularly since the onset of the internet, creates an environment conducive to small businesses and specialized products. For many of these businesses, reasons for outsourcing may go beyond cutting costs. It is possible that the small-business owner wants to maintain only a certain aspect of the product development. Perhaps he doesn't have the means to set up a large manufacturing plant. Since a lot of small businesses sell products that are specialized, it may not behoove the business-owner to expand if only a small customer demographic is targeted. Increasing in size to accommodate for all of the manufacturing processes may force the company to compete with larger ones. This could cause a shift of focus that may go beyond the scope of the original business plan.
Many small businesses are turning to outsourcing as a viable means to produce a product. For example, I was reading a magazine article a few years ago about an entrepreneur who had decided to start an online business selling custom stuffed toys he had personally designed. As someone who was able to work from his home office using design software, it was in his best interest to look elsewhere for manufacturing. A company in China was able to interface with his designs, and would send him samples of his designs so he could modify the patterns to get the look he wanted. In this way, he was able to control the aspects of the business he wanted, without having to move away from his artistically creative focus. This is indicative that inexpensive manufacturing processes could be increasingly used by small-business owners in order to quickly produce a specialized product without having to expand their businesses.
I also added, for her edification and yours, first, that for some small manufacturers labor costs, including medical benefits, are a great burden, unless the manufacturer has what amounts to a constant flow of work. Small companies have a tough time maintaining that. So nobody gets replaced after attrition.
Second, nobody is listening to W. Edwards Deming any more. (A great shame for the Western world.) In Out of the Crisis, one of Deming's 14 Points is stated this way:
End the practice of awarding business on the basis of a price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
My good friend Rich Barrett has passed away. He was one of the foremost experts in the world on the subject of fasteners -- a subject often overlooked by engineering organizations both small and large. He deserves credit from all of us for caring about a subject so many ignore as an afterthought; a subject that, if ignored, can lead to momentous engineering failures and loss of life and property. For my money, if an engineer CAN be a hero, Rich Barrett was a hero.
I've maintained a large portion of his Fastener Design Manual on this Web site. It'll stay here until I leave TCNJ for good and all, or until Rich's family asks me to pull it down. In the meantime, there will be no answers to e-mail inquiries made to Rich. I certainly won't do it, and I never have. Dozens of engineers has written to ask Rich for free help, which he didn't have time to give during his life, and which I am neither qualified nor inclined to pitch in. It's just a book -- read it or don't, but don't bother with questions. Rich did a fine job collecting a cache of info about fasteners, but he didn't leave behind a support service. You certainly won't honor his life by asking for help now.
This is his last communication to me, dated 03.17.2007:
My spouse and I divorced over religious differences. She thought she was God and I didn't.
I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.
Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them.
I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.
Don't take life too seriously; No one gets out alive.
You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me.
Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.
Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.
I'm not a complete idiot -- Some parts are just missing.
Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
NyQuil, the stuffy, sneezy, why-the-heck-is-the-room-spinning medicine.
God must love stupid people; He made so many.
The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.
Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?
Being "over the hill" is much better than being under it!
Wrinkled was not one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up.
Procrastinate Now!
I have a degree in Liberal Arts. Do you want fries with that?
A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere!
They call it PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.
He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless DEAD.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but it uses up three thousand times the memory.
Ham and eggs...A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.
The trouble with life is there's no background music.
The original point and click interface was a Smith & Wesson.
I smile because I don't know what the heck is going on.
This list has probably been around the Internet and back. But it shows that Rich was keeping a sense of humor around until the last.
Don't get me wrong: I like the idea of Engineering TV, which is brought to us by, among other entities, Machine Design, a magazine I have always liked.
But in the early going, I'm not impressed. Despite the slick production values going into Engineering TV, I am enjoying myself more watching YouTube.
The issues are these:
Most of the early videos are about robots. I LOVE robots myself, having worked with 'em a few years, but not everybody does. Which leads to...
...a marketing of this tool as being for all engineers, by default. We need to have some kind of filing system that helps engineers of specific types get to exactly what they're interested in. Maybe when they have a critical mass of material they'll go that way through natural evolution. Which leads to...
...a need to market the videos on an individual basis, highly targeting engineers in specific industries. They target their periodicals' e-mails that way, so I figure it's just a matter of time before they do it with the videos as well.
In the meantime, they're getting a lot of hits out of curiosity for the new material. Just like new Usenet groups used to. The history of the Internet tells us such curiosity is fleeting, and you need something else to keep viewers loyal after that. I'm looking forward to seeing if they have that something else in hand. There's a good team there. I wanna see what happens.
Yep, yep, I gotta get me one of them Beer Launchers. LOL This guy is said to want $1500 for one of these! The hardware makes the price not surprising, but would even beer aficionados go for it? I like the feeling of reaching down and pulling the can out of the fridge myself...
The "Teacher's Version" in the table below is a list of "Ten Commandments" for teachers, and it comes from developingteachers.com. (It's actually written for language teachers, but it seems reasonable for many subjects, if not all.) It's not a perfect match with ten of W. Edwards Deming's 14 Points for industry, but it's reasonably close.
Teachers' Version
Deming's Version
Lower inhibitions
Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work more effectively.
Encourage risk-taking
Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work.
Build self-confidence
Adopt and institute leadership for the management of people, recognizing their different abilities, capabilities, and aspirations.
Develop intrinsic motivation
Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets asking for zero defects or new levels of productivity.
Engage in cooperative learning
Adopt a new philosophy of cooperation (win-win) in which everybody wins and put it into practice by teaching it to employees, customers and suppliers.
Use right-brain processes
Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality.
Promote ambiguity tolerance
Eliminate numerical goals, numerical quotas and management by objectives. Substitute leadership.
Practice intuition
End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone. Instead, minimize total cost in the long run.
Process error feedback
Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
Set personal goals
Improve constantly, and forever, the system of production, service, planning, of any activity.
This just came in from engineer-poet David Young -- it's pretty cool!
Fasteners of two different materials, Inside a tough durable like plastic, Outside a non rusting metal shell, Screws or nails driven in cold.
When the outer head hits the surface, The outer part stops while inner moves Slightly coming out the end point as Its expands growing larger, seeding itself!
Hurricane wind braces in between walls, Forty five degrees of horizontal plane. Swiss cheese like holes inside its length, Accordion to stretch, contract harmonics!
Braces set at different computer set heights, More on those outer walls less on the inside. Same thing done on the ceilings with extra Shock absorbers to resist severe vibrations.
Additional safety of pressure equalizers, Keeping the inside closer to the outside. During severe tornadic, hurricane storms That might release before windows crash.
They ideas are copyrighted from dreams, Added to computer models harmonics, like Franklin, I want to contribute something To the American Home Sweet Home!
Pictured is Brian Holcombe's Camaro frame, which he's been working on since about the time this blog was started. He says "I've started doing some advertising," as this particular version of the frame was for a client's car -- not his own, as I'd previously written. (Dummy me.) So I asked him if he was doing up an info sheet to use with his promotion (and such info goes into any press releases that should happen to go to the trades). Here is the info we've gotten:
the frame has removed 70 lbf from the front end of the car -- very important for a drag racer's acceleration
it allows for much better suspension geometry then the factory frame
We have also seen Mary Anne Bitetto throw in her expertise (considerable for one so young) in the frame manufacture. The business will begin to take off now. :-)
One way you can tell the citizens are curious about technology
This is a history of Engineer as Hero movies, based on my reviews. As you can see, the frequency of movies spotlighting engineers and technology has skyrocketed since the early 1990s. This is an indicator to me that the movie-going public, at least, is curious about technology, and more interested in engineers than at any time since the term "engineer" was invented.
We're only a bit better than halfway through the first decade of the 2000s; at this rate by 2010 the same graph will look like it's increasing exponentially.
Why was there so little interest in this subject in the 1970s? Movies are a product of their times. American society was moving away from technology, not toward it, in the 70s.
Students ask me all the time how they'd use such skills in "real life" anyway. And I think that's part of the problem. We're used to having it done; we're not used to doing it. We're used to computer assistance; we're not used to getting our hands in there. We're used to having it ready to go right now; we're not used to taking the time to see something's done right.
And then we wonder why things don't turn out the way we want 'em to. Didn't we hire a professional? Didn't we use a computer? Here's a hot news flash: we fell over ourselves to find ways to get the wrong answer sooner. To have a wrong answer that's more precise. Our inability to understand, much less construct parallel lines is a symptom.
And the beauty of the world is less than it was. <sigh>
Someone I work with wanted to know about broken axis graphs (like the one pictured) -- where you put what I call "the zigzag" on the axis. Is there a name for that zigzag? Are there special cases where you use it? How in the name of GTFW do you create one of these things?
You've got data that doesn't fill the entire data range. If you show the entire data range, there is a chance that you won't be able to see interesting features the data contains. So I posed the question to the Rhetoric for Engineers mailing list and got the following responses:
Lisa Henn broke out her old drafting book (Giesecke is the author) and found that
[C]ertain circumstances require special consideration to avoid wasted space. For example, if the values to be plotted along one of the axes do not range near zero, a 'break' in the grid may be shown... [W]hen relative amount of change is required... the axes or grid should not be broken, and the zero line should not be omitted. If the absolute amount is the important consideration, the zero line may be omitted.
And Lisa herself adds,
On graphs, you'd want to put breaks such that there is still a gap shown in the data. In other words, you wouldn't want the data points crowding the break too much.
She finally points out that Edward Tufte probably addresses the issue.
Glen Hadley argues that it's not just that we want to ignore empty parts of the data range, but that we may want the data range to appear fully populated as well. This is an appearance issue, meaning that we might not be interested in an axis break for analysis. It's for presentations. So there are several sites where educators and consultants have found ways to fool Excel into creating axis breaks (why wouldn't Microsoft make that a standard option?) -- this is a long and tedious process, and you can be sure most engineers will never bother with it. I did it myself with the graph above, to make sure I could follow directions, and it took me 20 minutes. I also added a trendline to the original data, something the people writing on this subject didn't add to theirs. Here are the sites where they work this issue:
It's too bad the financial world doesn't read this. The economic, stock, and such graphs (almost) always show the top 0.1% of a curve which magnifies the miniscule noise into major ups and downs making it appear that the noise is significant when it isn't.
I must face the fact that I have become the world's foremost authority on a subject few people care about: movies which feature engineers and engineering. How do you get expertise on something so obscure? By watching a couple hundred movies. LOL
Well, you also have to think about them, and you have to have standards to which movies can be compared. I evaluate "engineer as hero" flicks this way:
The movie has to be watchable.
An engineer, or a group of engineers, or someone who is doing the work of an engineer, must be in a prominent role, or roles. (There is one exception on my site for a snake.)
There must be some technical content. The more there is, and the more it can be understood, the better. The best "engineer as hero" movies have lots of technology, and the average moviegoer's eyes won't glaze over to see all of that.
My son and I will work this summer to expand what's now a single page evaluating over a hundred movies into a full e-book, which you can download and argue with my ratings in the comfort of your living room. :-)
Randy Reali's "shock alarm," which I wrote about in an earlier post, has been for the time being abandoned. He found out two important facts after completing the first prototype:
The IMET Corporation would charge $3K to create Randy's second-generation prototype.
There is no guarantee it would sell. Potential users would be scared off by the thought of a shock, even though it's mild -- no more voltage than our bodies generate internally to make us twitch.
As for the first concern, Randy thought (and so do I) that IMET had a reasonable price. BUT... Randy is far enough along in engineering that he could do it himself now, if not as well. And the price was what made him start thinking about and talking to potential customers. He found the customer base just wasn't smart enough to be impressed by the technology, instead of scared off by it.
The truth about the Red Bead Experiment, as I see it
In a previous post, I mentioned W. Edwards Deming and how most of us ignore the lessons he taught the world about quality. A friend of mine wrote me back and talked wistfully about Deming's famous Red Bead Experiment -- how that illustrates the ignorance of quality shared by management in much of American business, industry, and (as I now know very well) public school systems.
I used to teach the Red Bead Experiment in my TCNJ classes (and maybe I should bring it back -- I still have the beads, after all), though strictly speaking, what I did wasn't exactly what was outlined by Deming according to most sources (like the Web site I link to above). Here's what I'd do:
I would have a small bucket of beads, and about ten percent of them would be red. The rest would be white. (This far I'm with Deming, except if I read him correctly he used red beads that were also a slightly different size from the white ones. I had to get same-size beads at the local craft supply store.)
I'd choose five students to be "workers," one to be "management."
Each in turn would use a 1/2 cup measuring scoop to get a level scoop of beads. (I usually ask the students to reach in without looking. Lost a fair number of dropped beads that way. Very realistic. But sometimes I would let each player look. I found that didn't change the results significantly. I different winner in a given round might well still be the loser in the next.)
We'd count the number of red beads each got.
The one who got the most was "fired" and the one who got the fewest got a "raise."
Return the beads to the bucket, and shake up the bucket.
Repeat the process with the scoop. Inevitably the one who got the raise would be just as likely to be fired in the next round as to get a raise again.
This is simpler than the experiment the Web sites describe; in my classes, since they're not about statistics or quality, it's not necessary for me to get into control charting and upper and lower control limits. But I don't usually need to get all the students fired before the rest of the class gets the idea: many of the "standards" we use to evaluate employees and co-workers are outside of their control. (Young people use the word "random" very loosely these days, but it applies here.) And some of the things they can't control, WE can help them with, through a combination of extra (and usually simple) training, mentoring, etc.
What takes a little extra effort for us to teach is this: management is responsible for anticipating what employees won't know, what questions employees might ask, what system problems might cause employees to "under-perform." You can't leave that in the hands of employees, because they might not know enough about the system to know what questions to ASK about the system. I gotta tell ya, if we leave employees to figure out for themselves what they come in to the job not knowing, we're asking them to avoid red beads. It's cruel.
Brian Holcombe:The integrity of the welding is something that is key to cars that work: a strong weld is a safe weld, and I pride myself on putting nice welding into my work. Admirer Bob: Nice welding; looks like it's going to be plenty strong too. Brian Holcombe:Thanks, Bob, when I'm finished I'm hoping I'll be able to jack the car up by the driveshaft loop.
I don't understand the significance of that last statement; only that it IS significant. :-)
You, too, can enjoy fine examples of "Engineer as Hero" fare at home this holiday season. Serenity, featuring Jewel Staite (pictured) as engineer Kaylee Frye, will be available on DVD starting 12.20. Just in time! Serenity is the movie version of the cancelled Fox Network sci-fi western Firefly, and is directed by Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Joss Whedon. You don't have to have enjoyed Firefly to understand Serenity, but it helps. (If there is any weakness to this movie, that's it.) Staite's Kaylee is a different kind of space flight engineer than, say, Star Trek'sJames Doohan. You don't hear any "she canna take any more!" though you do hear quite a bit about Kaylee's sidetracked love life. What makes Serenity work is the combination of fast-moving sci-fi action, including a space battle as good as any in Star Wars, along with a steady stream of one-liners from the veteran ensemble cast. Consider:
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Jayne, how many weapons you plan on bringing? You only got the two arms. Jayne Cobb: I just get excitable as to choice- like to have my options open. Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I don't plan on any shooting taking place during this job. Jayne Cobb: Well, what you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar.
I wish I could offer news as good about Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which appears to be unable to make the shelves in time for the holidays. This movie will please the whole family, as Peter Sallis voices Wallace, the inventor with a Rube Goldberg style. There are so many inventions in Were-Rabbit that you can't count 'em all! If you can't wait, there are, of course, several Wallace and Gromit shorts out there, each very good.
The old standbys are all to be had as well. If you need an engineer fix and don't have one on your shelf, there is always October Sky or Apollo 13.
Here you can see video footage of Brian Holcombe's Camaro at the drag strip! I talked about this with Brian, and here's what he had to say:
It's my Gold Camaro going 11.41 [elapsed time, seconds] at 115 [maximum speed] MPH with a 1.50 [seconds] 60-ft time.
This "60-ft time" pertains to the first 60 feet of the race, and is used to measure acceleration efficiency. It can reveal traction problems. Brian goes on:
It's extremely quick for a pump-gas 385" small block-powered 3300-pound Camaro. As far as the suspension goes, I've been tuning [British Columbia's racer-chassis designer] Alf Wiebe's Camaro traction bar setup. Through suspension tuning I've improved my elapsed times from 11.60 to 11.34, and improved my 60-ft times from 1.65 to 1.50. My traction has improved over competition engineering j-bolt traction bars.
Randy Reali is a rare student, as far as I'm concerned. And he agrees: when I asked if I could use him in my Web log, he said "as long as you paint a picture of me with your words that shows the true genius and stunning amazingness that is me." :-) :-) :-) Anyway, Randy is pictured from an article that appeared in the TCNJ student newspaper, the Signal, using ProEngineer to arrange his dorm room -- dorm rooms at TCNJ, without computer layout assistance, leave you without enough room to change your mind.
For my class, he's developed an alarm clock that delivers a "mild electrical stimulus." I dunno -- I thought it was novel and innovative. So I asked him to talk to IMET about a second-generation prototype, and to rush to the Patent Office with his claims. He says "as soon as I can get to it." That's the trouble with entrepreneurs: so many claims on their attention. I can only remind him what history says about inventors: if you have a good idea, somebody else is having it too. Like Elisha Gray, who almost beat Alexander Graham Bell to the Patent Office with the telephone. And probably should have.
Randy has a classmate who claims to have invented "Book Sox" (pictured) -- but he didn't get the intellectual property rights in place. "All I can say is that it's a true shame that I wasn't able to make in to the Patent Office in sixth grade. If that were the case, I may not even be attending [Dr. Graham's] class today!" So I hope Randy learns the lessons of the guys who finish second.
As I have written before, Holcombe Chassis Works is developing a new chassis (pictured, on a jig) for Brian's friend Larry, also a racer, and a mechanical engineer as well. Here's a description of what's up with this project:
Brian: you could say that i'm starting the rear portion of the frame rails, and that we've made a slight design change Brian: we've decided to use motor plates Ron: motor plates? Brian: which the significance of a motor plate is that it adds all the structural rigidity one could desire for this application Brian: its a big shear plate that spans the width of the chassis and bolts to the engine Brian: and there are two of them, one in front and one on the back of the engine Ron: so the rigidity is specifically targeted at the engine. Brian: yeah and it keeps the chassis from bending inward Ron: ...from the engine's weight? Brian: from that, and the when the car lands from the wheelie Ron: right. then you have an impact on one side and momentum on the other. Brian: i'll send you some new pictures after dinner Ron: cool beans, man. :-) Brian: thats a pretty good explanation of it. lol, thanks! Brian: it will take a lot of the stress off of the crossmembers Ron: the crossmembers are also products of your design, right? Brian: yeah Ron: so you are improving your overall approach. Brian: yeah definitely. this will make an overall much stronger design Ron: but not much of a weight hit? Brian: we had talked about this in the beginning, but since brought it up again as a good approach to the problem Brian: wont be much, the one plate is .090" steel and the other is 1/4" aluminum. Both are profiled to add a minimum of weight Ron: good! Brian: i'll weigh them when i get em and see how much we're looking at total
My friend Rich Barrett did a consulting job for Performance Friction Corp. in Clover, SC. This company makes, among other things, rotors (like the one pictured) and brake calipers, especially for racing cars.
This gig called for Rich (pictured) to pass along a final report, after which he would be paid a US $600 balance. This balance Rich never saw. In short, he was stiffed. Stiffed by a company who uses the following as part of its operating principles:
Excite the customer, by exceeding their expectations, with the absolute best product, delivery, and value through a total commitment to product and process integrity. Continually improve on the execution of TS16949. No Compromises.
Notice this says nothing about the way they treat their vendors.
Rich has always been an up-front guy, one who wears his heart on his sleeve. Though he feels Performance Friction must bear responsibility for its own lack of business ethics in this case, he sees it as a sign of a larger trend:
In business, the idea now seems to be that we will cheat you in any way we can. [We] will be as crooked as [we] can get away with.
Rich also says that consultants "know each other" -- that they run pretty much in the same circles.
Consultants are entrepreneurs, small businesspeople in general, who can't always absorb a $600 loss like Rich has been able to. So I see this as a sort of plagiarism, in which Performance Friction takes ownership of work it has never done, and never paid for, and benefits from that work. It also contributes to a lessening regard for smaller entrepreneurs, while increasing its own company value just a tiny bit. And since Rich is my friend, Performance Friction, a company heretofore unknown to me, is now my enemy.
Let me ask you, officers of Performance Friction: was stiffing Rich for $600 worth it?
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I convinced my line management at NASA Glenn Research Center to purchase $100 worth of Legos -- I mean, "LEGO bricks or toys" -- for visualization of various configurations of Space Station Freedom, which was soon thereafter referred to by critics, amidst massive budget cuts and redesign efforts, as "Space Station Fred." Anyway, what's pictured is Valerie DuFore, then a student intern working with me, holding one of the LEGO Space Stations we'd made.
I left NASA in 1996, but the "LEGO bricks or toys" are still there. At least, I think they are. Who takes responsibility for stuff like that when there are reorganizations? And in retrospect, there are problems with physical visualization of a large space structure made with what's really a crude block-based toy. Crude in this context, anyway -- no offense meant to young kids out there. If visualization is what you need, then you need to create a model that both looks and moves (or can be positioned) something like the real article. Solar arrays, for instance, are not really mounted on wheels free to turn; they're mounted on gimbals that must BE turned. And solar arrays are also flexible, yadda yadda yadda.
But I think what makes me regret that $100 expenditure the most is the little bit of polite complaining the LEGO people do about the way the rest of us "misuse" their brand (pictured). Doesn't it make you feel sorry you bought their stuff to have them lecture you on what you should CALL their stuff? That's how I feel when I read this.
I am trying to create a program (currently written in Java, in which case it would be used as an applet) that allows for multi-degree-of-freedom visualization of a social network. The image here shows an output for the program using ten contacts of mine. Here's the way it works right now:
A color code describes interest type (and you choose how many interests)
cyan
pink
lightGray
yellow
orange
white
I'm at the center. The radial distance outward from the center indicates the strength of the interest this contact has in this particular interest type.
The angular distance clockwise from positive horizontal shows how up-to-date I am with the contact. Less clock time after 3 PM means more up-to-date.
The size of the contact's circle symbol shows how important the contact is in this context.
The border thickness shows the level of intimacy I have with the contact -- thin borders are closer friends.
And the contact's initials are to the right of and below the contact's circle symbol.
So what do I do with this? Two things come to mind:
If an important contact is not up-to-date, I have to work on that. Especially if the contact's interest is strong.
If there is a lot of interest in a certain area (one color reaching a high level of interest), then it's time for me to soak myself in that area a little bit.
Your mileage may vary.
But I want to make this useful to others, not just myself. To do that I have to make it interactive, and let you decide how many contacts to include. I know how to do this, but it'll take a little longer to put together. Maybe by the end of the week.
My specialty is start-ups, especially those run by students. I am a micropatron, purveyor of sweat equity, prognosticator of and speculator on future fortunes, and reservoir of multifaceted experience.
You have just discovered the world's foremost authority on Holcombe Chassis Works, Juterphusion Recording Solutions, the IMET Corporation, and GreyPilgrim Inc., as well as several other start-ups and really small companies. Apart from their employees themselves, that is. :-) :-) :-)
I have just finished a compilation of four years of blogging on these subjects, and you can have it for FREE! Just contact me!
I also write about writing, quality, failures, customer service, and the creative process. Start-ups tend to care about these issues.
To the best of my knowledge, systems analysis is what was practiced by Richard Riehle in Office Space. 
My good friend Rich Barrett has passed away. He was one of the foremost experts in the world on the subject of fasteners -- a subject often overlooked by engineering organizations both small and large. He deserves credit from all of us for caring about a subject so many ignore as an afterthought; a subject that, if ignored, can lead to momentous engineering failures and loss of life and property. For my money, if an engineer CAN be a hero, Rich Barrett was a hero.
Pictured is Brian Holcombe's Camaro frame, which he's been working on since about the time this blog was started. He says "I've started doing some advertising," as this particular version of the frame was for a client's car -- not his own, as I'd previously written. (Dummy me.) So I asked him if he was doing up an info sheet to use with his promotion (and such info goes into any 
This is a history of 
Someone I work with wanted to know about broken axis graphs (like the one pictured) -- where you put what I call "the zigzag" on the axis. Is there a name for that zigzag? Are there special cases where you use it? How in the name of GTFW do you create one of these things?
Brian Holcombe:The integrity of the welding is something that is key to cars that work: a strong weld is a safe weld, and I pride myself on 
You, too, can enjoy fine examples of "Engineer as Hero" fare at home this holiday season. 
Anyway, Randy is pictured 
Randy has a classmate who claims to have invented 
As 
My friend 
This gig called for Rich (pictured) to pass along a final report, after which he would be paid a US $600 balance. This balance Rich never saw. In short, he was stiffed. Stiffed by a company who uses the following as part of its operating principles:
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I convinced my line management at 
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