Re: [PSES] [EXTERNAL] Re: [PSES] What percentage of products pass first time?

Cortland Richmond Fri, 04 Jun 2021 10:54:36 -0700

I started in EMC on retiring from the Army in 1983, at Wang Labs, where my 15 years in avionics maintenance and repair, a few teaching at its school in Georgia, plus a Secret clearance to do TEMPEST testing, meant all I needed was a three-letter course given by three-letter instructors.

EMC compliance and vulnerability is very basic, and yet, many of the degreed engineers I worked with sometimes had me teaching EMC "lunch and learns", or arguing for fixes from shield terminations to chassis contact points to avoid just as expensive (and less reliable) slip-on copper fingers. GE Aviation recruited me ("Smith Aerospace" in Michigan just then) and it was often the basics that designers adn engineers often misunderstood or forgot. "Put the electrons back before they scream for their mothers!"

And every employer had files my first manager at Smiths/GE called "files written down." High School physics, or so I thought.

I retried to a few years working on contracts, and I doubt I'll be working again at 77 -- but it was FUN.

Ad astra per Asperger -- discovered at 67.

Cortland

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Hulbert
Sent: May 26, 2021 7:58 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [PSES] [EXTERNAL] Re: [PSES] What percentage of products pass first time?

I first started in the EMC, Product Safety, and standards compliance aspect of engineering about 35 years ago. At that time they were saying all the same things we are saying today: Must be considered up front in designs. Must be included in engineering education at the college/university level. Management needs to commit to compliance. I would also add that EMC was “black magic” (do people still say that?). Apparently we still have a long way to go. I wonder if they will still be saying these things 35 years from now.

Jim Hulbert

From: John E Allen <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 5:59 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [PSES] What percentage of products pass first time?

Like a “lot” of people here, I never had any formal education in either safety or EMC compliance – I just had to learn “on the job” about “what worked and what didn’t”, and often in very challenging situations.

(OTOH, I was never the “sharpest tool in the toolbox” in engineering parlance – which was a “problem” when engaging with local management which, frankly, mainly “didn’t to know” ☹, )

Therefore safety, standards compliance and EMC standards compliance REALLY MUST be an integral component of engineering education – and ALSO for company management - forward from where we are “now”.

John E Allen

W. London, UK.

From: Dennis Ward <[email protected]>
Sent: 25 May 2021 21:09
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [PSES] What percentage of products pass first time?

Having been in the EMC business now for going on 40+years, I concur with what Pete is saying. The truth of the matter is, this field of study is sadly under taught and is still more hands on and learning by trial and error for the most part. Yes, there are a lot of good ‘classes’ you can take, but the fact remains, this is more than not an OJT field.

As to manufacturers designing at the limit. This is also true, and also problematic as it means far too many products still fail first time out.

I don’t know if I would necessarily agree with the percentages reported, but it is getting a better.

My last 20+ years has been working in the regulatory approvals end and I can say that failure to comply with rules and standards is still a big issue with manufacturers.

Thanks

Dennis Ward
Senior Reviewing Engineer
PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, LLC.
7185 Oakland Mills Road
Columbia, MD 21045
1 410 290 6652)

[email protected] | www.pctest.com | www.element.com

This communication and any attachment contain information from PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, LLC. and is intended for the exclusive use of the recipient(s) named above.

From: Pete Perkins <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 12:39 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [PSES] What percentage of products pass first time?

CAUTION:This email originated from outside of Element Materials Technology. DO NOT click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Please contact IT Service Desk if you are in any doubt about this email.

James,

You don’t have to denigrate yourself as not being a guru. You have plenty of experience in this as shown by your comments. Sharing this is quite valuable to the others on this thread.

               All of us started out as ignorant of any of these requirements because they are not taught in formal college level courses; a few exceptions seem to exist.

               Some folks might get specialized training – if they work for a gov’t agency or a safety test organization; else it’s all OJT.

               I don’t see that changing any time soon; the academic folks have their interests which continue to push mathematical analysis techniques (and that will continue). More and more technical folks will get higher degrees [you know what BS is, MS is More of the Same and PhD is Piled higher and Deeper :>) ], hardly any of which is of interest at our daily working level. Manufacturers will continue to steal trained folks from test labs; probably not too bad a deal especially if the folks move back and forth to spread what they’ve learned going each way.

               Finally, the standards keep getting more complex (PhD effect) and interrelated as issues are delved into more deeply; plus manufacturers are getting better trained to design near the limit without as much margin so the compliance is close to falling off of the edge of the world at any moment.

               So keep at what you are doing as long as you enjoy it; then get out gracefully – keeping your reputation intact to maintain a legacy as you go.



               Enough of Phil 101 today.

:>)     br,      Pete

Peter E Perkins, PE

Principal Product Safety & Regulatory Affairs Consultant

PO Box 1067

Albany, ORe 97321-0413

503/452-1201

IEEE Life Fellow

IEEE PSES 2020 Distinguished Lecturer

www.researchgate.net search my name

[email protected]

Entropy ain’t what it used to be

From: James Pawson (U3C) <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 1:19 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [PSES] What percentage of products pass first time?

(replying even though I’m not a guru)

Hi Charles, hope all is well with you

Speaking from my own experience. Over the last four years of running a consultancy, pre-compliance and low cost test EMC laboratory I would (very roughly) estimate that around:

50% of products pass their desired radiated emissions limits without any modification

33% or less pass all of the applicable tests first time without modification

The major caveats and notes here are that

These figures are for customers products where the EMC performance is not known before testing. We do a lot of work helping people solve existing EMC problems but we are not counting this in these figures.
Most of my customers are smaller businesses that can’t afford to employ an engineer to just look after compliance. That job role is either split amongst several people or the engineer in question has to look after quality, manufacturing, sustaining, thermal, system, and everything else. Speaking as someone who has designed many products and systems in the past, trying to design for functionality whilst simultaneously considering best EMC performance is HARD. I use the metaphor of
The products that pass first time generally fall into one of three categories

Products that we have design reviewed before the design was finalised
Retests of products that have already been through our lab once
Products that are very simple in nature

Our hit-rate at being able to solve our customers problems is around 90-95%
The “ones that got away” where we were unable to help deliver a compliant include

No action taken: Products where it was deemed by the manufacturer not economically feasible to modify the product (e.g. product going end of life)
No further communications from the manufacturer so we don’t get to find out what happened next (no news is good news, right?)

I would echo the sentiments of others on this thread regarding the need to design in compliance from the start.

One of the problems with the field of compliance is that it is too often “learned through experience in industry” and not explicitly taught. When it is taught at academic level it is often a surface treatment with a theoretical look at shielding or maybe crosstalk with no other practical context or background.

The split between industry and academia is one of the possible causes. Yes, there are exceptions to this but they primarily remain exceptions. I had discussions with a local university about some guest lectures on compliance and the theme of the response was “it doesn’t really fit into any of our modules” and “we can’t have it as an optional lecture as none of the students will attend”.

The number of times I hear “oh, thanks for that. No one has every explained it that clearly before” is worrying!

All the best

James

James Pawson

The EMC Problem Solver

Unit 3 Compliance Ltd

EMC : Environmental : Safety : CE + UKCA : Consultancy

www.unit3compliance.co.uk | +44(0)1274 911747 | +44(0)7811 139957

2 Wellington Business Park, New Lane, Bradford, BD4 8AL

Registered in England and Wales # 10574298

From: Grasso, Charles [Outlook] <[email protected]>
Sent: 24 May 2021 15:47
To: [email protected]
Subject: [PSES] What percentage of products pass first time?

Hello EMC gurus!

Calling all labs - In your experience how many products pass the Unintentional Emissions
test first time?

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Re: [PSES] [EXTERNAL] Re: [PSES] What percentage of products pass first time?

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