PROFESSIONAL INFO

Systems analyst in the field of industrial configuration management (assembly documentation, version/revision control, and integrated interface with design and manufacturing).

Put most simply, this program automatically creates parts-lists (bills of material) on a computer so that manufacturers can document their assemblies easier. While just about any complex manufacturing company already writes its parts-lists on a computer, MBOM does so with valuable automated sophistication. By sophisticated mechanization of parts-list writing, MBOM establishes a locus of resource control so valuable that it not only increases profit margins, but it also offers a potentially powerful tool for easing global-level political and environmental problems. I present a survey of benefits progressively revealing how MBOM's unique attack on resource management problems at the corporate level creates an exciting opportunity to ease global-level problems (see last paragraph of this description by benefits).

By guiding the user in selecting parts, MBOM helps assure quality at the component level (reducing COSTLY warranty returns), and helps reduce part redundancy in stock and in documentation files. The MBOM program guides the user, a typical electronics hardware designer, in selecting parts according to algorithms and search routines reflecting good component selection criteria. Thus, MBOM acts like a junior component engineer who intervenes in parts-list creation.

By guiding the user in writing the actual parts-list, MBOM helps assure both the integrity and serviceability of the parts-list as a document, reducing errors and easing the process of revision and configuration management, which in turn optimizes manufacturing flexibility toward marketing strategies. Queries can prompt the user about "where used" and version similarity with other designs, and so make the user more aware of, and careful with, configuration relations. Again, MBOM acts like a configuration control clerk.

By interfacing directly with existing commercially available MIS/MRP and CAE/CAD/CAM packages (if desired), MBOM delivers special integration benefits to all MIS/MRP/CAE/CAD/CAM users. Upon installation, MBOM's "component engineering" algorithms scan existing databases in MIS/MRP systems to query the installers about component identifications ("Is this a 74ALS174 IC from Toshiba in your database?") and proceed to flag potential quality problems, invalid part numbers, and redundancies. From there on, MBOM can inform many CAE/CAD packages about component lead times, pricing and other factors normally recorded in MIS/MRP. Likewise, MBOM can take input directly from CAE/CAD packages in place of intermediate human users for many of its data needs, or perhaps MBOM can be integrated within the CAE/CAD workstation in "blowthrough" fashion. Similar handshakes apply for parts-lists as well. MBOM both reads and writes parts-lists and change order records from/to MIS/MRP packages, acting as a sophisticated data entry terminal with built-in configuration sensibilities for such MIS/MRP packages.

By automating a large portion of an otherwise time/money/quality consuming procedures, MBOM creates not only profit increase for its users, but an opportunity to select component resources according to extra-corporate value concerns, such as global-ecology and ethical/political criteria. This opportunity consists in expanding and updating the component selection modules through a centralized research team serving all client users. This centralization makes sophisticated component selection economically profitable for all client users via the "division of labor" principle. Therefore, the built-in component selection criteria (Jr. component engineering function) can expand in sophistication to include rankings for environmentally safe and/or politically correct manufacturing methods employed in component manufacture. Users can then offset part selection by price/delivery/quality/safety criteria alone and begin selecting parts based on ecological and political factors which were previously unaccountable. Such users can then pass on their globally aware selection criteria itself as a selling point to offset any increased expense. Plausibly, MBOM's proliferation in the manufacturing trade matrix could make possible an aggregate enviro-political ranking visible at the consumer level, informing and empowering the consumer to buy environmentally safe/politically correct products - in turn drawing manufacturers to meet consumer demand for such products and thereby reverse our trend toward environmental/political holocaust.

And I've so far made a prototype of an MBOM resistor selection module in Hypercard.

This is what my teacher says of it:

"His excellent independent project was designed to allow circuit designers to locate appropriate resistors for projects by querying a database of specifications. The screens were pretty crowded, but the stack offered all sorts of features - finding the closest approximations for the user when an exact match for the specifications weren't available, displaying the possible choices graphically in various effective ways, and dealing with a variety of unusual cases. Luke drew thoughtfully on his own experience in the area to design the application, and the care and work he put into it were evident in its scope and depth." (Thad Curtz)

I learned about electronic components and configuration management serving as Jr. level component engineer for eight years at three telecommunications equipment manufacturers in Northern Virginia. Perhaps because I lacked much knowledge of how most electronic components actually functioned in designs, I focused more on schemes for classifying them and accessing information about them. From this perspective, I became interested in automating my own job.

• 07-86 to 08-90: Spectrum Digital /  Telematics International
  Herndon, VA 22070
  POSITION: Components Engineer

• 04-85 to 08-85: Comsat Telesystems
  Fairfax, VA 22031
  POSITION: Components Specialist

• 11-84 to 03-85: Solarex Corporation
  Rockville, MD 20850
  POSITON: Bills of Materials Coordinator

• 09-81 to 09-84: Comsat Telesystems
  Fairfax, VA 22031
  POSITION: Components Specialist

• Sometimes during breaks from college: Anadigicom Corporation
  Chantilly, VA 22021
  POSITON: Components Engineer / Documentation Specialist

See also my exhaustive employment history.