致当今电子行业：一个400年的历史教训

A four hundred year old lesson for today by Eric Bogatin The competition is surging ahead A few past public product failures are casting doubts on the ability of the company The Boss feels under pressure to show the competition up and he is pressing his product development team to deliver something that will blow the completion away A new product is planned that will show the world how powerful and important The Boss and his company are The company had built a similar product which worked great but this new design has an important new feature and there are no analytical models to predict the performance The designer is the best in the business but he is nervous about the design It goes beyond his experience and there is no time to slowly move up the learning curve The Boss wants it his way The original designer leaves the project part way through Management keeps changing the spec to add more features that will impress the world The product is built but when it is secretly tested the test manager has to suspend the test or the handcrafted first article would have catastrophically failed The Boss with the very strong personality is out of town and can t be reached and no one is brave enough to tell him of the failure They hope it was a fluke Production moves ahead and the product is released to great fanfare A huge party is held to celebrate the launch of this new product the company s flagship creation the state of the art what will surely show the world how great their leadership is And what a magnificent disaster it is In less than an hour of operation the product destroys itself lives are lost all under the eyes of friends families and competitors The response of The Boss who is still out of town Imprudence and negligence must have been the cause and the guilty parties must be punished Does this story sound familiar Is it about the latest PC operating system Is it about the last product your company wanted to ship but you kept failing FCC certification and missed the market window Is it about the first high speed serial link product your company tried to bring to market without enough signal integrity experience to avoid the common landmines This is the story of the Vasa a sailing ship launched on Aug 10 1628 The Boss was King Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden At the time of construction and testing the King was leading his invading army into Poland counting on his new battleship to help win the war Playing catch up Sweden was behind the rest of the world s navies and only able to build single gun deck ships Gustavus II wanted two decks of guns to project Sweden s world power But the design of ships was an art passed down from father to son No designer in the shipyards of Skeppsgarden nor in the entire Swedish Empire knew the numbers for dimension and ballast to ensure stability with the height and weight of two gun decks The original designer Henrick Hyberstsson had tried a conservative design and specified 24 pound guns for the lower deck and lighter weight 12 pound guns for the upper deck He died a year before construction finished The King decided he wanted to project more power and ordered 24 pound guns for the upper deck as well The new ship builders went along since the King had signed off on the design As part of the stability testing of every ship 30 sailors would run from side to side ten times to try to capsize the ship When testing the Vasa the ship master Joran Matsson had to halt the test after three cycles for fear the ship would capsize Admiral Klas Fleming one of the most influential admirals in the Navy witnessed the test It was his responsibility to tell the King and halt the design but he was too frightened of the King s response and never mentioned the stability problem At 4 p m on Sunday afternoon Aug 10 1628 the ship was officially launched with 90 sailors and their families wives and children aboard to celebrate the pride of the Swedish Navy It was to be a short cruise around the bay and back again Using only four of her 10 sails she pulled away from the pier The Council of the Realm described the events in a letter to the King who was still away waging war in Prussia When the ship left the shelter of Tegelviken a stronger wind entered the sails and she immediately began to heel over hard to the lee side She righted herself slightly again until she approached Beckholmen where she heeled right over and water gushed in through the gun ports until she slowly went to the bottom under sail pennants and all The maiden voyage lasted for 1 300 meters at the end of which 25 men women and children lay entombed in the sunken ship No one responsible An inquiry was held a month later After hearing testimony from the captain the sailors the shipbuilder and the admiral no one was ultimately punished for the disaster On the morning of April 24 1961 333 years after she sank the Vasa was raised from the sea floor and now is preserved intact in the Vasa Museum in Stockholm Why did the Vasa sink Ultimately it was a combination of being top heavy with too much weight in the masts and the two decks of guns with not enough ballast Even the ballast was not designed well It was composed of round river rocks which would roll with the ship adding positive feedback to induce the ship to roll even more The legacy of the Vasa suggests a few pointers for advanced product development that might still apply almost 400 years later Express your concerns when management changes the specs in the middle of the product design If you are pushing the envelope of performance there is no substitute to having an analytical model to accurately predict performance before you commit to hardware When you do have first article and perform test and measurements use the data to verify how well it matches the predictions and when it doesn t use the data to hack into the design to determine its limitations Never hesitate voicing your concerns to management The last thing they want is a surprise 致当今电子行业 一个致当今电子行业 一个 400 年的历史教训年的历史教训 以下要讲的是一个历史上的失败工程经验 可提供当今的电子产业界作为借鉴 在竞争日益激烈的市场上 某家公司因为推出了几个失败产品 引发外界对其能力的质疑 该公司老板在沉重竞争压力下 强迫手下的开发团队设计出能令人耳目一新的东西 而且 这个计划中的新产品 得展现公司老板与企业本身的能力与地位 这家公司曾经推出过表现优异的类似产品 但是新设计拥有重要的新特性 又没有分析模 型能预测其性能 该公司旗下的设计师也是业界顶尖的 设计师本人却对这个工作非常紧 张 这超越了他先前的经验 也没有时间让他慢慢摸索 老板要怎样就得怎样做 在产品设计中途 原始设计师退出了 该公司管理高层一直在改变产品规格 并要求加入 更多能 惊艳世界 的新功能 该产品后来是完成了 但进行秘密测试后 测试经理不得不 暂停测试以及第一批样品的制作 以免导致灾难性的失败 幸好 那个很强势的公司老板刚好不在 也无法联络上 其实也根本没人有勇气告诉他新 产品开发失败 他们希望那只是个意外 于是 该产品继续走向量产 甚至到了如火如荼 的地步 公司还举办了盛大发表会 宣告新诞生的旗舰产品不但是最先进的 也无疑将展 现公司的领导地位 但恐怖的灾难就此发生 该产品运作还不到一小时就自我毁灭 还让许多宝贵生命在朋友 家人与竞争者眼前丧失 而那个还是不在家的老板 对这件事的回应是 轻率与疏忽的态 度必然是最大的因素 而那些有罪的人必须受到惩罚 这个故事听起来是不是很熟悉 是跟最新的计算机操作系统有关吗 是在说你们公司想推 出的最新产品 却老是过不了 FCC 认证 以致错失市场先机吗 还是在说你们公司首度 开发打算上市的第一款高速串行式链接产品 却因为缺乏足够的信号完整性经验 所以连 常见的地雷都避不过 其实这个故事说的 是一艘命名为 Vasa 在 1628 年 8 月 10 日下水的帆船 里面提到的 老板 是瑞典国王古斯塔夫二世 Gustavus II Adolphus 在 Vasa 正在建造与测试的当时 他正率领其军队侵略波兰 并寄望他的新战舰能够帮忙赢得战争 在那个时候 瑞典的海军战力落后于世界其他国家 而且只会建造单炮台甲板船 single gun deck ship 古斯塔夫二世希望能通过双炮台甲板船的建造来展现瑞典国力 但造船是 一门世代传承的艺术 在瑞典 Skeppsgarden 的船坞 甚至是整个瑞典王国 都找不到会 建造双炮台甲板船舰的造船师傅 Vasa 的原始设计师 Henrick Hyberstsson 试着用较保守的设计 为船舰上下炮台甲板分 别配置了重量为 24 磅与 12 磅的火炮 但他却在造船工作完成的一年前去世 古斯塔夫二 世后来决定要展现更强大的军力 要求在上层甲板也配备 24 磅的火炮 而由于国王的命 令 新的造船师傅也只得照办 当时 为了要测试船舰的稳定性 会叫 30 个水手从新船的某一侧跑到相反的另一侧 看 看船会不会翻覆 而 Vasa 在测试期间 船长 Joran Matsson 不得不在三个轮回之后下令 暂停 因为害怕船会真的翻过去 而目击整个测试过程的海军总司令 Klas Fleming 本该 报告国王实情以停止新船的设计 却因