Brian, I hope things are not that grim for you. We would hate to loose a "Brian" on here.
In addition to the points you made, can you believe the job descriptions that are posted on here? In the good-ol-days, you could be an EMC expert or Safety or Telecom, but today you are expected to be experts on EVERYTHING!!!!! Every time a new directive comes out or some regulation anywhere in the world, WE are expected to know all about it. But the research it takes to be quasi-familiar with all this stuff is considered "NON PRODUCTIVE" to our employers. When will it end? Back to Margin - Our products are not considered "mass produced". They are built mostly by-hand and each model can have hundreds of different combinations of options, so we must have more margin up-front than most other companies. Our goal (Compliance Department) is 8db radiated and 10db line conducted for prototype and first production audit, but once in production, we will be happy with 5db radiated and 8db line conducted. These margins for us has minimized design changes on production products. Most of the time if we find a problem it is due to production not building it correctly. Improper torque on screws, incorrect paint masking, poor internal cable routing, etc.. If we didn't have such a large margin to begin with, we would most likely be shutting down production (shipping) several times a year. I know this kind of margin would be unnecessarily high for most other companies. Good luck to you. The Other Brian From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brian O'Connell Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 10:28 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Internal Margins for Emissions Testing Mr. Woodgate's point is, of course, a basic truth. But there are other 'basic' truths to corporate life; i.e., what a North American company will tolerate in terms of resource allocation/consumption. So if a non-core engineering or support activity consumes more than a 'minimal' portion of time and/or budget, then the immediate response of bean counters is to outsource the activity. For example, in Southern California, I used to have contact with at least four other Product Safety engineers in my employer's industry sector. I am the last one standing (perhaps not much longer). Many companies have eliminated compliance engineering and outsourced to agency labs. For example, note that most of the product safety job openings in this area are from these same agencies (www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/ocs/pses/jobs.html). The limitation to the application of Mr. Woodgate's basic truth is that few western companies consider participation in standards development an "investment"; mostly because "the time and money" for a non-core engineering activity is viewed as a zero-sum game. It is my opinion that if my employer had to answer to western/institutional stock holders, my job (and several others) would not exist. As for margins, my employer's policy is for 8dB (6 dB is probably more reasonable) for conducted emissions. And there have been situations where that was not enough for a customer's (noisy) product. luck and health, Brian > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of John > Woodgate > Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 10:19 PM > To: Bill Owsley > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Internal Margins for Emissions Testing > > In message <[email protected]>, > dated Thu, 28 > Jun 2007, Bill Owsley <[email protected]> writes: > > >Why o why can't we have standards that cover every > possibility we can > >think of??? > > Do you or your employer have the time and money to help > write them? We > get the standards that our investment in the > standards-making process > permits. > -- > OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk > There are benefits from being irrational - just ask the > square root of 2. > John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc LECO Corporation Notice: This communication may contain confidential information intended for the named recipient(s) only. If you received this by mistake, please destroy it and notify us of the error. Thank you. - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________
