Prototyping is that vital and often fragile stage of development when a design is first taken from "paper" design to physical existence. Prototypes are normally assembled by the engineering staff which did the design because of the great need at this stage for design-level understanding of the prototype. Later on the design will be refined and documented so that normal production staff can handle it but the prototypes themselves are part of the refining process which takes the design from concept to smooth production.
By its very nature prototyping is often something of a "seat of the pants" process requiring experience, patience, gentleness and skillful assembly abilities. The typical prototyping area has an interesting collection of parts ( photo ) and the prototype itself can look a bit frightening to a casual observer ( photo ).
Prototyping is something of a commando-style process where the key skills are thorough understanding of the operation top to bottom and a good supply of quick-witted adaptability.
Bill Grace has many years of experience and numerous colorful episodes in prototyping. His prototyping skills include:
The need for testing comes from (1) errors in the design effort and (2) errors in the production process. Either of these errors will interfere with a product's proper behavior and lead to customer problems if not caught before product sale. While every effort should be made to reduce these two sources of errors, it is very rare that they fail to materialize so testing is used to detect such errors allowing corrective measures to be taken before the customer is involved.
Testing during prototyping is intended to detect design errors and testing during production ("Quality Assurance") is intended to detect flaws from any other source during manufacturing. While Quality Assurance testing is performed during normal production, the testing criteria and procedures are developed as part of the design process. Testing procedures and criteria are documented during the design process so that QA staff can successfully implement testing when the design has passed into production.
Bill Grace has testing skills and experience including:
The production staff may need training. Customer support staff may need training. New production facilities may be required. Stock must be built up. Company documentation requirements must be satisfied.
Bill Grace has been through the production launch process numerous times. His skills and experience relating to this phase of development include:
Bill Grace has compiled complete manufacturing packages for client businesses as well as for products where he has also acted as the manufacturing entity. A complete manufacturing package will often contain both data files and printed versions of the same information so that both machines and people have straightforward access to them.
Items included in a typical manufacturing package include:
