Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is not a substitute for product test. It can be used as a supplement to design and test. There are lots of ways to use it during design: to evaluate differences in prototype options, as test inputs, and even to help with root cause analysis.

We talk about FEA and when to work with Quality Engineers and Reliability Engineers for next steps.

Visit the podcast blog for links to additional resources. 

Are your teams struggling with poor communication and rushed timelines? Is your product vision clouded by a lack of clarity? It's time to find your way through the confusion and build products that truly resonate with users.

Introducing "Pierce the Design Fog" by Dianna Deeney, the essential guide to turning abstract ideas into high-quality products. This book offers a proven playbook with practical frameworks and tools to help you foster team synergy, lead with vision, and ma

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What are 2 lessons about remote work, coming out of the pandemic? We talk about a couple of perspectives that can apply to design engineering:

• Feedback from our friends that were remote pre-pandemic
• Being intentional about gaining a frame of reference

Have you done a lessons learned about your communications, coming out of the pandemic? What are you carrying forward into the next phase of your engineering career? Leave me a comment on the podcast blog, and maybe you'll inspire others with your idea, too. 

Related QDD episodes: 

Gemba for Product Design Engineering

Internal Customers vs. External Customers

Are your teams struggling with poor communication and rushed timelines? Is your product vision clouded by a lack of clarity? It's time to find your way through the confusion and build products that truly resonate with users.

Introducing "Pierce the Design Fog" by Dianna Deeney, the essential guide to turning abstract ideas into high-quality products. This book offers a proven playbook with practical frameworks and tools to help you foster team synergy, lead with vision, and ma

JOIN ME ON SUBSTACK Subscribe today.

We don't just rely on the numbers - we always plot the data! We review how we use plots to look past the numbers, and to be aware of common gotchas.

Visit the podcast blog to comment.

Related, previous QDD episodes:
How to Handle Competing Failure Modes - Quality During Design 

Discrete Data vs. Continuous Data - Quality During Design 

Are your teams struggling with poor communication and rushed timelines? Is your product vision clouded by a lack of clarity? It's time to find your way through the confusion and build products that truly resonate with users.

Introducing "Pierce the Design Fog" by Dianna Deeney, the essential guide to turning abstract ideas into high-quality products. This book offers a proven playbook with practical frameworks and tools to help you foster team synergy, lead with vision, and ma

JOIN ME ON SUBSTACK Subscribe today.

Supplier control plans and design specs can go hand-in-hand in the quest for quality. 

Control plans aren't just for quality professionals! Learn how partnering with suppliers for a simple control plan can benefit your design process.

Visit the podcast blog for a list of benefits.

Want to explore controls a little further? Try these other QDD episodes: 

Prevention Controls vs. Detection Controls

How many controls do we need to reduce risk?

Design Specs vs. Process Control, Capability, and SPC

Are your teams struggling with poor communication and rushed timelines? Is your product vision clouded by a lack of clarity? It's time to find your way through the confusion and build products that truly resonate with users.

Introducing "Pierce the Design Fog" by Dianna Deeney, the essential guide to turning abstract ideas into high-quality products. This book offers a proven playbook with practical frameworks and tools to help you foster team synergy, lead with vision, and ma

JOIN ME ON SUBSTACK Subscribe today.

Our manufacturing friends are approaching us with a problem.

They want to test the product during manufacturing. The way the product is currently designed doesn't let them do this, or not easily.

Can we make a design change so they can test?

Imagine that they're coming to us with this question before we've completed the design. Can they really see the future?

Perhaps, with strategic use of FMEA. We talk through a scenario of how to do it.

Visit this podcast blog to add a comment. 
 

These other QDD episodes expand on some concepts:

Design Specs vs. Process Control, Capability, and SPC

Prevention Controls vs. Detection Controls

Use FMEA to Choose Critical Design Features

Are your teams struggling with poor communication and rushed timelines? Is your product vision clouded by a lack of clarity? It's time to find your way through the confusion and build products that truly resonate with users.

Introducing "Pierce the Design Fog" by Dianna Deeney, the essential guide to turning abstract ideas into high-quality products. This book offers a proven playbook with practical frameworks and tools to help you foster team synergy, lead with vision, and ma

JOIN ME ON SUBSTACK Subscribe today.

We're heading into pilot production, where some initial parts might be made.

We've got to finish those design specs and engineering drawings!

• Manufacturing wants to start cutting steel for molds. 
• Suppliers want to work out the specs on their end. 
• QA is asking what they should inspect. 

Before you pass it along, have you identified what features are critical? Does it align with managing risk? And are you communicating that effectively on your specs and drawings?

Creating design specs is an important part of engineering design. We review a way to choose critical design features, based on risk.

Check out these other podcast episodes to further explore some of these topics:

• The Way We Test Matters
• Designing Specs for QA

Visit the podcast blog for links to related episodes.

Are your teams struggling with poor communication and rushed timelines? Is your product vision clouded by a lack of clarity? It's time to find your way through the confusion and build products that truly resonate with users.

Introducing "Pierce the Design Fog" by Dianna Deeney, the essential guide to turning abstract ideas into high-quality products. This book offers a proven playbook with practical frameworks and tools to help you foster team synergy, lead with vision, and ma

JOIN ME ON SUBSTACK Subscribe today.

We can get stuck when trying to discover a solution to a problem.

We talk about a Nine Windows tool and TRIZ - more thought-provoking methods that we can use to get unstuck and move on to the next step.

Visit the podcast blog for graphics and lots of helpful links.

Are your teams struggling with poor communication and rushed timelines? Is your product vision clouded by a lack of clarity? It's time to find your way through the confusion and build products that truly resonate with users.

Introducing "Pierce the Design Fog" by Dianna Deeney, the essential guide to turning abstract ideas into high-quality products. This book offers a proven playbook with practical frameworks and tools to help you foster team synergy, lead with vision, and ma

JOIN ME ON SUBSTACK Subscribe today.

We can get stuck when trying to discover a solution to a problem. Sometimes it helps to expand our thinking into other avenues. We can reframe our problem within its contradictions. What is it not?

We review an Is/Is-Not Matrix: how it's built, its purpose, and how it can help us.

Visit the podcast blog for the matrix. 

Are your teams struggling with poor communication and rushed timelines? Is your product vision clouded by a lack of clarity? It's time to find your way through the confusion and build products that truly resonate with users.

Introducing "Pierce the Design Fog" by Dianna Deeney, the essential guide to turning abstract ideas into high-quality products. This book offers a proven playbook with practical frameworks and tools to help you foster team synergy, lead with vision, and ma

JOIN ME ON SUBSTACK Subscribe today.

We're uncovering risks during our new product development, about our design. How do we manage risks? What options do we have?

There are at least 5 options we can take to manage risks. We talk about each, and how quality and reliability methods and techniques may help us with the next steps to be able to make decisions with our team.

Visit the podcast blog for links to episodes that explore concepts a little deeper.

Are your teams struggling with poor communication and rushed timelines? Is your product vision clouded by a lack of clarity? It's time to find your way through the confusion and build products that truly resonate with users.

Introducing "Pierce the Design Fog" by Dianna Deeney, the essential guide to turning abstract ideas into high-quality products. This book offers a proven playbook with practical frameworks and tools to help you foster team synergy, lead with vision, and ma

JOIN ME ON SUBSTACK Subscribe today.

As a design engineer, you’re tasked with translating vague customer statements into something technical and measurable. And you also need to identify what requirements are important: filtering the “must meet” requirements against the “should have” requirements. And, finally, you need to do this with your cross-functional team.  

What if you miss something important? 

It’s difficult. There is a method that we can use. Let’s talk about the House of Quality and how you can use it no matter if your company uses QFD or not.

See the podcast blog for a graphic and other references.

Are your teams struggling with poor communication and rushed timelines? Is your product vision clouded by a lack of clarity? It's time to find your way through the confusion and build products that truly resonate with users.

Introducing "Pierce the Design Fog" by Dianna Deeney, the essential guide to turning abstract ideas into high-quality products. This book offers a proven playbook with practical frameworks and tools to help you foster team synergy, lead with vision, and ma

JOIN ME ON SUBSTACK Subscribe today.