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Home > The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast > #577 – Product Lifecycle Maintenance with Michael Corr
Podcast: The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast
Episode:

#577 – Product Lifecycle Maintenance with Michael Corr
Category: Science & Medicine
Duration: 01:23:34
Publish Date: 2022-02-14 01:42:14
Description:

Welcome, Michael Corr of Duro!

  • Chris met Michael when he was still working at a drone startup in SF
  • Wendover Productions video about drone delivery
  • After that he did consulting for a while and then started Duro
  • PLM stands for “Product Lifecycle Maintenance”. If you have used a system that has change orders, it was likely a PLM.
  • Chris first experienced this as paper tracking at a co-op in mid 2000’s
  • Michael wants the process to be more like Pull Requests in software revision control.
  • It can be tough dealing with binaries when doing revision control.
  • There are other differences when comparing hardware vs software revision control.
  • Separations of engineer from buyers means there’s less insight into supply chain woes
  • Purchasing changes once you go to production
  • Michael got started in R&D at SRI (Stanford Research Institute)
  • He then moved to a high volume manufacturing job and was surprised at the differences. Notably the cost benefit of spending time costing down a BOM another 10 cents.
  • Chris maintains that this is why hardware engineers are cheapsaktes
  • Another problem in the industry is that tools aren’t interoperable, requiring meta layers like Duro.
  • DFM and DFA are tough to do because there is a “wall” between manufacturing and engineering.
  • Mechanical examples
  • Michael says having quick iterationg is another similarlity with a more desirable process: Agile feedback loops
  • What does a release process look like?
  • Where is the source of truth? To avoid the manufacturer using the wrong attachment, Duro sends a link instead of an attachment
  • Tying into ERP systems that purchasing deparments might use.
  • Tying into MES software package integrations for companies doing their own manufacturing (like on the shop floor)
  • The problems are everywhere: big companies might be able to move faster, but it’s by grinding with tools like spreadsheets
  • When Michael moved to LA, he started mentoring at a hardware accelerator program
  • When do people start using PLM systems? Chris thinks it should be “Two boards and an interconnect”
  • Michael says it’s important to start using PLM ASAP, at the very least to start using a part numbering system. This was a similar opinion that Jan Rychter (PartsBox) had about management systems.
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