User:Lawpjc/Sandbox

What makes good engineering knowledge, and what are the benefits of its reuse

Introduction:

 * Abbreviate titles of all sections o explain contents
 * State the question
 * Aims
 * What we proved?

Good Knowledge and why

 * Define good knowledge
 * State uses of good knowledge
 * Why this is important
 * Where the regulation of this can help
 * Cite circuitry being reused
 * Use of proved knowledge over untried

Alex: engineering processes

 * The use of electronic design aids (CAD, CAM, Matlab) has empowered the designer at their desktop, but has it increased their productivity?
 * CAD - enables easy re-use via modular components
 * explain design aids
 * empowerment -> fast prottyping
 * initial delay - learning curve & slower than paper
 * costs of initial errors


 * productivity
 * +ve -> empowerment
 * -ve -> costs & learning curve & lazy designers


 * existing component libraries

how the info is reused

 * information used to skip previous design stages
 * learn from previous mistakes

the egneneer can design something that takes advantage of all construction skills

 * misinterpreting the knowledge
 * trying to reimpliment cutting edge technology can go wrong
 * the knowledge can be used for a bad use

knowledge access
The design process relies heavily on information located from a variety of sources - how do you find & track these


 * different sources - internet, books, journals, people & some is kept secret not everyone can access this knowledge
 * wikis and indexes to keep organised with keywords and wept up to date
 * time consuming
 * takes up lots of space
 * copyright, dataprotection, patent
 * How can the design knowledge be captured without overloading the designer?
 * needs to have a specific format
 * each new piece of knowledge needs new document


 * decide exactly what to capture and what to waste

Benefits

 * Reduced development and testing time as the existing processes can be re-used without their own development phases
 * Improved efficiency and work rate as engineers do not need to learn about a new piece of hardware/software/process before begining development cycle
 * can push towards 'good practice' and standardisation, which can result in more efficient communication between developers and a better product
 * Encourages work to be modular so that small units can be re-used elsewhere
 * Encourages work to be open, clear and well documented so it can be easily re-used

Costs

 * May result in engineers using a technology without truly understanding it (if poorly documented, or if documentation is ignored)
 * Can lead to dependence on existing technologies as engineers are not required to create original designs
 * These may present a significant hindrance should the knowledge be lost for any reason
 * May lead to incorrect or out of context (which may lead to bad practice) use of concepts etc.
 * May allow developers to take shortcuts because they _think_ they know how stuff works