Cyber Blue, Team 234, has published a white paper on their program / design review process. Their review process involves four specific in process reviews by an independent team. It has been expanded and improved for 2004 based on reviewer and team comments from previous years.
Teams are invited to adopt and adapt this process to suit their needs.
The paper id is #251 and is in the Team Organization section.
Thursday night we had review #1, the Concept Review.
We had five managers on the review panel. Only 1 had been involved with the team in the past, and 4 of the 5 attended the kick-off event and had a basic understanding of the game. This review was led by our team captains and seniors.
After viewing the game animation, we spend about 20 minutes at the playing field further explaining the game.
We then described what we thought the critical robot features were to play this game. Next, we provided descriptions of two basic robot designs, including appendages and drive systems, and a strategy that either robot was acceptable for.
The review team asked several questions and highlighted areas of concern and caution on some design features and even drew a few of their ideas on the board for us. They questioned us on strategy and our expectations of our partners and competitors in each match.
The total review was just under 3 hours.
Before closing, the review team gave us some insight into what they will be expecting at the next review - Preliminary Design, which is next Thursday. We captured all of the review team comments and questions and used them tonight (Friday) to arrive at our final design decision.
We have now split into component design teams and will work this next week on detailed designs and drawings.
So far we have been able to stay to our basic schedule. This week will be a real challenge.
Last night was the Preliminary Design Review.
Cyber Blue had five reviewers - 3 common to the Concept Review and one
new reviewer from each of two other sponsors.
The presentations were made by several of the team members.
Overall the reviewers were positive about the progress made in the past week and how many of their ideas and comments had been considered.
We spend a great deal of time discussing the schedule and risk assessment and mitigation activities. Their comments would apply to any team, so I will share them here.
Quickly identify the longest lead* components. Make a priority list based on lead time. Assign drafting jobs based on the longest elad items. Make sure someone is defining the specs and placing orders for purchased parts.
Determine if some long lead manufactured parts can be ‘risk released’. This would mean releasing the print to the manufacturing team before it is completely finished. This would allow the manufacturing team to begin working on the part up to a specific point while the design work continues.
Determine a method of easy priority for manufacturing work. Color coded drawings or a numbering system would make it easy for the machining team to know what part should be worked on next. It is probably not a first in - first out priority.
Write basic routings for manufactured parts and have the machinist mark progress. That way, if someone is absent the next work period someone else can easily see what needs to be done and finish the work.
Identify critical dimensions and locations so that the machinist knows where accuracy is absolutely required and where there is some margin room.
Next week is the Critical Design Review. We should have completed drawings and a full risk assessment and several parts / sub-assemblies completed.
Thursday night (29 January), Cyber Blue completed their Critical Design Review with the Technical Advisory Team. This review was a bit more formal than the previous ones and was completed at the Rolls-Royce Training Center. The parent crew provided dinner for the students, reviewer team and other guests.
The agenda included presentations on the team history, previous awards, the PR team and community activity, schedule, Risk, a game description and the Animation team. Following this information, the team presented their 2004 strategy and design to the reviewers.
Every student had a speaking part during the 2-1/2 hour review.
The sub-component teams detailed the design and functionality of their portion with drawings, words, pictures and either actual parts or mock-up pieces.
The review team asked several questions and confirmed in their own minds that the design was acceptable and the risks manageable for Cyber Blue to continue.
There was a considerable discussion on Risk Identification and Mitigation activity. Cyber Blue has initiated a risk management process and provided the review team with some samples of identified risks.
The process Cyber Blue is using is an “IF, THEN” identification. In use, the person defining the risk states that “IF this event happens, THEN this will happen”. Next, a likelihood of the event happening is assigned (High, Medium or Low), then an Impact (H, M, L) if it does occur. The next step is to identify Mitigation actions to reduce either the likelihood of the event happening or the impact if it does happen. The team then puts the risks in a rank order (High, High are at the top, Low / Low at the bottom) to determine what risks need to be worked on – there is usually no way to address every one.
One of the review team members suggested that we also add a column to the matrix to identify the ‘cost’ of implementing the mitigation. The cost might be dollars, time or an increased risk to other robot functions. This suggestion was adopted and added to the risk matrix.
An example of a Risk:
IF there is a pneumatic air leak, THEN our gizmo will not work properly.
Likelihood: Medium.
Impact: High.
Mitigation: Make new, clean cuts on all pneumatic tubing.
Use Teflon tape on all fittings.
Use leak check solution and test the complete system.
Cost: Low cost and minimal time to implement Mitigations.
(145 / 02)
To all that are reading this thread posted by Chris,
This is what succesful technical companies do. We at FANUC call it an FMEA, because we like acronyms. It stands for Failure Modes Effects Analysis and it is performed exactly as Chris describes it.
What amazes me is that Chris and his team can actually pull this off in the six week FIRST design cycle. I thought we were stretching it by designing everything in CAD before we cut one chip, but the procedure Cyber Blue is incorporating takes A LOT of engineering discipline. I am recommending this thread be at the top of everyone’s “to read” list.
Great job Cyber Blue,
Paul
Final Review was this Monday.
It as a Production Readiness / Operational Readiness Review.
If we were building a turbine engines…
For the Production Readiness Review, we would have focused on our supply chain, manufacturing facilities, parts releases, quality systems, etc. The review would have been to insure that we were ready for full scale production.
For the Operational Readiness Review, we would have focused on field service support, repair facilities, operating manuals, overhaul manuals, and spare parts availability.
But, since we are building 1 robot, our focus was a bit different.
We first showed that the robot we have designed and are building met our requirements. We focused on our “internal requirements”, but could have also stepped through the FIRST requirements as well. For each of our requirements, we tried to show proof that we met the requirement - either proven by design data or from demonstrated testing.
The operational readiness focused on the competition capability of the robot. Was it durable and robust, could it take the stress of competition, did we have spare parts ready, and such.
We had the robot partially disassembled so we could not drive for them, but we did show video from the week before.
To close the review we received comments from the reviewers on our process and ways they saw to improve the process of what we were doing. Overall they were very positive.
Our next step is to complete a matrix of complaince to our requriemetns and to continue to review our risk register as we go into the final weekend.
Another unexpected plus form this review was through a new sponsor. We have added Allison Transmission (GM) as a sponsor this season. One of the Engineering Managers was a part of our Technical Advisory Team and he attended most of the reviews. We gained from his involvement, and he has a better understanding of the FIRST program by really being a part of our build process. It was truly a win - win situation.
No more reviews - we have an open house Monday for the community, school, sponsors and others. The TAC will be there and hope to see a fully functional robot driving around, and “hanging around” a bit, also!
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