Victor L. Boersma wrote:
> Doug,
> What you call "compliance engineering" I call 
> "good design engineering". Basically, whether 
> it is a regulatory requirement or not, there 
> are certain things you have to do if you don't 
> want your equipment to disturb other equipment.

I disagree.  What I call "good design engineering" 
is NOT "compliance engineering".  From my experience, 
yours may be different and I'm not invalidating that.  
Many things can be done to make the the product "work" 
per the functional specification, but fail miserably 
in the lab.  

It has been my experience that only under pressure of 
a failure or a history of failures that "cost" the 
company money will they heed.  True, there are techniques 
of simple board construction that will make a significant 
change in say S/N, and true also there are techniques to 
"good engineering design" that may overlap with compliance 
requirements, but that's where I draw the line. I've had 
to teach designers (good to excellent engineers I might add) 
of all sorts of experience proper board layout techniques 
for "compliance". Even after that I made sure I was a 
signatory foe releasing drawings of board layouts and 
other system drawings. 

Compliance engineering is exactly that - engineering.  
A compliance engineer is responsible for the engineering 
of the product for compliance. The designer is responsible 
for the engineering of the product for functionality. 
The compliance engineer should be involved from 
the initial conception of a product through till 
the obsolesance of the product.  That includes 
components, design, layout, mechanical and 
electrical, product release, ECR's, ECO's, 
manufacturing methods and tests, etc... 
And includes the product testing. Compliance engineering 
covers the three major areas of a company engineering, 
manufacturing, and marketing. 

> No IEC-950 or CISPR-22 course will teach that.

That is exactly what I didn't mean.  

But since you've brought it up, there are design 
requirements for a product in IEC-950 being a 
construction and performance standard (i.e. wires, 
pcb material, hi-pot testing, materials, grounding, 
user accessibility, minimum distances), but there 
are none in CISPR-22 being strictly a performance standard.

> Given that standards are next in popularity to 
> cold wet toilet paper, I would never call the 
> course anything having to do with standards.  
> I certainly believe that somebody who wants to 
> be a design engineer, should have proper EMC 
> lay-out in his courses somewhere. 

There are none that I know as "standard" for required 
curriqula in a 4 year engineering program for a B.S. 
within the U.S.  That you used the words "believe" 
and "should" tells me you know of none either, no?

Again Victor, your experience is different.  No argument. 
Mine is obviously very different also.  No argument. 

*******************************************************
-------------------------------------------------------
The comments and opinions stated herein are mine alone,
and do not reflect those of my employer.
-------------------------------------------------------
*******************************************************

Reply via email to