Pretty was not A Design Requirement!!

[Niel Leon]

One of my favorite design review stories comes from a device that I developed for the US Military. It was a special container that held chemical simulants to confirm operation of a chemical dector first used in the 1991 Gulf War. The simulant package had to be small, rugged, inexpensive, easy to manufacture, a prevent the simulant form escaping prematurely.

Larry, my designer, and I developed the design prepared all the drawings and got the first units made for evaluation by Marketing and the Buyer (the US Marines). It was the companies policy that Engineering did not participate in these Design Reviews.

When the design review was over, I ask the Marketing Manager for the Military's respone to the design and the devices operation.

His answer, "Its not pretty!"

DANG IT! that's not help. Pretty was not a design requirement. How can we be expected to improve our design without realistic feed back?

Well the good news was that other than having to invent a way for Quality to accept the molds and first articles of the parts we got the product quickly into full production.

Needless to say appearance is one of those issues I always confirm is high on the list of questions I ask a client when starting a new design effort.

I am still in contact with Larry today, whenever we discuss this design review we are both on the floor laughing our guts out.

Niel