Project Management

Browse our library of resources to learn more about project management in pcb design.

Leading a Team for Embedded Electronics Putting together a team, and the infrastructure to support embedded electronics design, requires an understanding of how every part works and how they interact. In this article I want to talk about how to build that team and provide some insight on how to build the infrastructure necessary for your product development. Definition: What are the different parts Designing an embedded electronic product requires pieces from different facets of Read Article

Reduce PCB Manufacturing Time Through Manufacturer Collaboration In a recent interview with PCB007, Altium VP of Marketing Lawrence Romine recalled a brief conversation with Tara Dunn, who remarked that all designs her company receives for manufacturing get put on hold. If you’re a manufacturer, this probably doesn’t surprise you; some designers can be very cavalier with their design choices. Although these designs may be innovative and useful from a signal integrity and layout perspective, they may not be Read Article

1:0:56 Explore Concord Pro With Altium’s Chief Software Architect The very mention of component management can stir up unwanted memories of fatal error footprints on PCBs and other “fixed” Watch Video

Building the Right Team for Electronics Design: A Deeper Investigation In Building the Right Team for Electronics Design: An Introduction we discussed the concept of creating a diverse team of people with a diverse set of skills. In today’s market, it is virtually impossible to build a team of homogenous engineers who can deliver from start to finish. Each engineer, possessing unique skill sets, contributes to the sum of parts within the design lifecycle. In this article, we will dive more deeply into the different Read Article

Continuous Deployment: An Implementation Using Altium Designer In Continuous Integration and Deployment in ECAD we discussed the concept of Continuous Deployment within a build system. In this article, we will take a deeper look at how to set up continuous delivery and deployment systems so your team and vendors can enjoy a continuous stream of updated ECAD packages for review. Continuous Deployment/Delivery: Revisited In Continuous Integration: An Implementation Using Altium Designer we went through the Read Article

Advancements in Electronic Component Management In this volatile business of ours, we can ill afford to rest on our laurels, even to pause in retrospect. Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future. - Walt Disney I stood at the large hospital window looking out at the early evening sky. I could see several stories below just a small section of the nearby freeway. As typical for the late hour, the traffic was at a standstill, with its Read Article

Building the Right Team for Electronics Design: An Introduction Building and growing the right team for electronics design in today’s job market can be quite challenging. We sometimes feel that as our company grows the talent pool dwindles. We embark on a search for the perfect designers, seeking out individuals who can “do it all.” For some, we idealize this knight in shining armor as a senior engineer, armed with his HP calculator in one hand and electronics textbooks in another. For others it is the whiz Read Article

Why Your Root Cause Analysis Starts with Component Traceability At this point, we’ve reached a significant milestone. Having followed through the last article, we now have a very stable and, more importantly, reliable PCB library. Since we can safely use the data in designs, many people decide not to go beyond the review process. You should, however, continue to the fifth pillar if you want to ensure success. So, why the fifth pillar? Because although we have a great structure, we must take the information Read Article

PCB Design Rule Verification in Agile Development Agile development relies on a unique workflow that can benefit from PCB design rule verification I used to think that agile development is just a software development methodology with specific rules and processes. Agile hardware design processes seem to be rigid when viewed from the surface, but any agile design process is designed to allow a team to adapt to change throughout the product development cycle. In reality, the central ideas in agile Read Article

BOM Management and PCB Design Data Synchronization Cloud-based tools for data management can keep your design and production data synchronized If you lead a design team, then your job is already difficult enough. Your design teams need to adhere to a development schedule and manage requirements changes as they create a new product. Collaboration is key in any environment with multiple players, and your design tools play an important role in creating a productive environment. Ensuring that all Read Article

Agile Product Lifecycle Management Methods in PCB Design Supercharge your productivity with agile product lifecycle management Any industry that relies heavily on new technologies must frequently reinvent itself and address product obsolescence. Every piece of technology has a finite lifecycle that ends due to obsolescence or malfunction. Electronics and the PCBs that support them are no different; components on PCBs eventually wear out and malfunction, or the product can no longer compete with a Read Article

What is an Engineering Bill of Materials in Agile PCB Design? If you’ve ever prepared a new device for manufacturing, then you’re probably familiar with the different types of bills of materials. Each document has its place in the design and production planning process. If you understand the role of each type of bill of materials, you can take advantage of the information it contains to improve your design process. If you’re an agile hardware development team, then you know that your design team will need Read Article

Why Your BOM Excel Template is Going the Way of the Dinosaur It’s time to ditch your BOM Excel template The saying goes in software, “great coders use great code”. The same idea applies to Excel templates. I like to use Excel templates for a number of business tasks. I use invoice templates, finance calculators, and an accounting template. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, so why not use a great template when someone makes it available for free? The usefulness of an Excel template depends on the data Read Article

Agile Development for Embedded Systems: The Best of Both Worlds You might want to use agile development to build this embedded system As unique hardware platforms that provide computing power in a variety of applications, embedded systems combine the best of every techie’s dreams: hardware design and software development. Design processes for simpler embedded systems tend to be linear, and the hardware and embedded software may even be developed in parallel by different design teams. As systems become more Read Article

Smart Architecture for Successful PCB Component Libraries Organizing is what you do before you do something so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up. - A. A. Milne Architecture is the specific structure that governs our collected data. It determines how we store, arrange, and utilize the data in the system. In a way, the architecture of your PCB library is like the architecture of a building. You need to have it completed before you build your library so you don’t wind up with a virtual Hotel Del Read Article

Continuous Integration: An Implementation Using Altium Designer In a previous article, Continuous Integration and Deployment in ECAD, we discussed the concept of Continuous Integration while testing within a build system (leveraging Git). In this article, we will take a deeper look at how to set this up and run these “tests” against one’s PCB design project. Continuous Integration Tests: Revisited In Software Engineering, the purpose of implementing Continuous Integration into a workflow is to prevent one’s Read Article

49:24 New Product Overview: Altium Concord Pro There are many risks if your library and component data are not managed efficiently and effectively. Inefficiency occurs when multiple Watch Video