I have made it a requirement here that the Compliance/Regulatory/Homologation/Approval Liaison engineer sign-off all engineering change orders (ECOs). There is such a space on the ECO form. (This is from my earlier days as a BABT Approval Liaison Eng. - ALE- where BABT required this of telecom companies).
Additionally, 'Substitution Request Forms' that purchasing has to fill-out (and supply a sample and data sheet) at least minimizes surprises. While it is nearly impossible to fully retest the product every time a minor component change is made, it at least raises a flag and for critical components the appropriate tests are made in addition to reviewing data sheets. John Juhasz Fiber Options Bohemia, NY -----Original Message----- From: Jacob Schanker [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 3:10 PM To: Alex McNeil; [email protected] Subject: Re: EFT Failures..Solved!+ ESD symbol question Alex: Good Show. I am curious as to HOW the unfamiliar manufacturer's driver got into your product. It seems this was a costly substitution in terms of time and lab fees. I wonder if you are a victim of the "Purchasing as a Profit Center Syndrome." This is the characteristic of too many organizations, where the purchasing agent has the authority (or takes it) to make parts substitutions on the basis of lower cost, or sometimes, social relationships. I've seen many cases of "equivalent" or "as good as" parts that were anything but. I shudder at the engineering hours I have seen wasted due to substitutions. The best approach I can offer is that parts should have approved and released engineering drawings which cannot be changed except by going through a formal change control process - which engineering either controls or participates in. Purchasing cannot purchase parts from a vendor who is not approved on the part drawing, except at their own career risk. Engineering change notices (a.k.a. Design change notices DCN) should require the approval, in some fashion, of the EMC and homologation person in the organization. I have used a check box on ECNs which say: _____may affect EMC/EMI ______ may affect approvals/homologation or something to that effect. This lets the originator do the alerting, and hopefully actually think about the broader implications of a change that is being contemplated. I'm sure that others on this forum have their own approaches, either personal or organizational. Perhaps they will share them. One last remark, and this applies also to vendors who change parts but not part numbers. An example being the smaller die sizes of FETs being discussed here lately. I have always found it helpful to keep a "S-H-one-T" list (SH1T) of rogue vendors not to buy from, and freely share the list with engineers and, yes, even purchasing. Cheers, Jack Jacob Z. Schanker, P.E. 65 Crandon Way Rochester, NY 14618 Phone: 716 442 3909 Fax: 716 442 2182 [email protected] ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Michael Garretson: [email protected] Dave Heald [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: No longer online until our new server is brought online and the old messages are imported into the new server.
