Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Elementary, Mr. Watson: Are We There Yet?

Anyone who has taken a road trip with children knows the question, “Are we there yet?” very well. That was where I found myself recently on a road trip to Lake Tahoe with two young grandkids in the back. I think they pre-planned it, but every few miles, they asked that very question. It got to the point where I felt I am being punked when they would ask and immediately start to giggle just to see my reaction. I can understand the frustration a kid must feel and how difficult it is when you are young and anxious to have a monotonous drive. But I also understand how exciting it must be to have all that behind you and arrive at your destination.

I know that exact feeling. It usually hits me when I am sitting in a conference room, conducting a PCB design review. The same phrase sometimes starts to run through my head: “Are we there yet?” It is an interesting phenomenon when you take a group of engineers, put them in a room, and ask their opinions.

Even worse is when it goes far beyond opinion and begins to fall into the deep hole of what-ifs: “What if this or that happens?” If you are not careful, that can quickly spiral out of control. Before you know it, your PCB project is off track, and you lose sight of precisely what the objective is with no focus or direction and the words, “Are we there yet?” ringing in your mind.

Concept to Market
There is a tremendous amount of stress in the PCB design process and, besides the additional pressure of time. The question on many VPs’ mind is probably the same as it is for us at our company. How do we reduce the time from concept to market? If you are a designer working in the manufacturing area, you know that you do not get paid to only “design stuff.” Your company ultimately exists to design, build, and get that product on the shelf where a customer buys it, and that is where you get the return on the investment of hard work. With that in mind, the longer it takes to get your product to market, the more market share you are losing. When a project loses its focus and direction, it means one thing the company is losing money.

To stay as the “lead dog” in the industry means that you will not have time to conduct multiple PCB runs. You need to get it correct the first time. I find it interesting that the mindset is to find any problems or issues using the fabrication/assembly process. That is an expensive way to validate a design. I mean, if we were able to build it and everything went on the PCB, it must be correct, right? Not particularly. Just because a PCB design “got through” does not mean that it was accurate; it may only mean that you got lucky. Another thing is that we rush designs through to save time, and in doing so, we skip the steps to validate and prove the design out, which automatically means another spin. I am amazed that we do not have time to do it right, but we have time to do it again.

What Are We Doing?
The PCB design and its process can fall into the proverbial rabbit hole because there is not a clear plan at the very beginning. Engineers like jumping in and start tackling the “how” of a project without first answering the more important question of, “What are we doing?” There are four fundamental questions you must answer before ever starting any PCB project.

Why
Why are we building a specific item? That determines the motivation. It is probably an essential part. There will be times when you will either lose focus or maybe hit some problems. During those times, look back on this question of why. By doing that, it reminds you of the deeper issue of what was your motivation at the beginning.

I don’t know too many companies that do something because it sounds fun. Usually, there is something that is driving that specific product. For most, a sector of the market has shown interest or a desire for a product. To fulfill that need with the prospect of the cash flow that motivates many companies, which is fine. It is always good to recenter yourself occasionally in a project to the motivation behind it.

What
This determines the goal or objective you are after. The answer to that should not be a long dissertation but rather a simple sentence that asks, “What are we doing?” That identifies the objective. You might feel this is easy to determine, but sometimes, it isn’t. Some sort of official document that defines the team and what they are to accomplish should drive the project.

Many times, I end up asking, “Are we there yet?” because as the project progresses, changes are brought up that never initially was considered. I know this never happens with anyone reading this (I am using my sarcastic voice). That is how engineers design things; they always look at the way things can be improved. But that will derail things very quickly because you do not know if you have crossed the finish line or, more accurately, if the finish line continually moves. If you are to keep things on track, know what you are doing, and once you get there, then you are done.

It takes discipline to draw a line in the sand and finish a project. How do you handle those things only introduced at the end of a project? We evaluate how critical they are, the impact of implementing them, and the bearing on that crucial schedule; if they are things that can roll into the next revision of the design, we do it.

How
This is where you now lay out the plan for the process; it is getting from point A to point B. To go back to our analogy of the road trip, the “how” is using your GPS. For PCB design, the process is very systematic. No matter what ECAD software that you use, they all do the same thing; where they differ is the added bells and whistles to help. But no matter what software or tools you use, set up a PCB process that uses gatekeeping validation. What is meant by that is during crucial moments of the design, stop and see if you are still on track. We will look at this more in detail in the future.

The PCB has several stages. Each stage has its verification test to know you finished that specific stage. An excellent example of this would be your ERC for your schematic and your DRC for the PCB. Those are the verification test. Since this is a gate-keeping item, the project does not leave that stage unless it is verified. Do not kick things down the road, either unchecked or with known problems. They most likely will be forgotten and will pop back up when you get the PCB back.

When
You can set up your why, what, and how, but a project with no date on it is just a pipe dream. Place milestone dates at critical points of the project. Place them early and often, and if you miss any of those target dates, adjust immediately.

The one thing I would like to say here is do not have people who do not know what it takes to accomplish the task to set up a schedule. Marketing always wants it done last week. If you feel that a schedule is unrealistic, make sure to speak up. Nothing is more stressful than trying to reach an unrealistic timetable.

Conclusion
You cannot pick and choose which of these four key points that you want to follow. For a PCB design to stay on schedule and out of the weeds, you need all four. An important point is if you find that you are asking yourself, “Are we there yet?” review these four areas to refocus on why you are doing it (motivation), what (objective), how (process), and when (schedule). Don’t flounder too long in that place of indecision because it would be like trying to go to Lake Tahoe and ending up in Colorado, thinking I knew I should have taken that left at Albuquerque (only certain folks will get that reference).

John Watson, CID, is a senior PCB engineer at Legrand Corporation.