Top 25 Engineer’s Terms and Expressions

[radiomog]

Top 25 Engineer’s Terms and Expressions

(What we say versus what it means)

1. A number of different approaches are being tried.
    We are still guessing at this point.

2. Close project coordination.
    We sat down and had coffee together.

3. An extensive report is being prepared on a fresh approach.
    We just hired three punk kids out of school.

4. Major technological breakthrough!
    It works OK; but looks very hi-tech!

5. Customer satisfaction is believed assured.
    We are so far behind schedule, that the customer will take anything.

6. Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive.
    The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.

7. Test results were extremely gratifying!
    Unbelievable, it actually worked!

8. The entire concept will have to be abandoned.
    The only guy who understood the thing quit.

9. It is in process.
    It is so wrapped in red tape that the situation is completely hopeless.

10. We will look into it.
      Forget it! We have enough problems already.

11. Please note and initial.
      Let’s spread the responsibility for this.

12. Give us the benefit of your thinking.
      We’ll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we have already done or with what we are going to do.

13. Give us your interpretation.
      We can’t wait to hear your bull.

14. See me or let’s discuss.
      Come to my office, I've screwed up again.

15. All new.
     Parts are not interchangeable with previous design.

16. Rugged.
     Don’t plan to lift it without major equipment.

17. Robust!
     Rugged, but more so

18. Light weight.
     Slightly lighter than rugged

19. Years of development.
     One finally worked

20. Energy saving.
     Achieved when the power switch is off.

21. No maintenance.
     Impossible to fix

22. Low maintenance.
     Nearly impossible to fix

23. Fax me the data.
     I’m too lazy to write it down.

24. We are following the standard!
     That’s the way we have always done it!

25. I didn't get your e-mail.
     I haven’t checked my e-mail for days.

[free_electron]

26: we delivered first prototype to the customer.
The only one of the 500 built that did anything at all...

[Sbampato12]

#25, always....

[rollatorwieltje]

Low total cost of ownership: unreliable as hell, but the spare parts are cheap

[SeanB]

Energy Efficient: We figured out that it would last an entire day in use if we used a battery so big you need a backpack to carry it. Then we put in a small one that would fit the designers case design mostly.

[Neilm]

We have satisfied all the product requirements. (but not those that you haven't bothered to tell me about)

[vk6zgo]

26: we delivered first prototype to the customer.
The only one of the 500 built that did anything at all...

There is a long & glorious tradition,of using the customer as Quality Control.
The only downside is,they will get sick of sending the thing back,fix it themselves & then badmouth your company all over the community.

[EEVblog]

There is not a single item on that list that I have not personally seen to be true at the companies I've worked at 

[pickle9000]

My favorite answer.

Sample questions.

Will it work?
Is the engineer here?
Where you able to repair it?

The answer:

In theory.

[twistedresistor]

The engineer is in the lab right now.
It surely won't be finished faster if you call in to check the status every five minutes.

Every part in this product was chosen due to extensive reasoning.
Well I had it in my drawer, so I put it in.

[Ice-Tea]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean...

I'm pretty sure I understand what you mean and I'm damn sure you're an idiot.

[free_electron]

26: we delivered first prototype to the customer.
The only one of the 500 built that did anything at all...

There is a long & glorious tradition,of using the customer as Quality Control.
The only downside is,they will get sick of sending the thing back,fix it themselves & then badmouth your company all over the community.

-GASP- you mean this applies to software too ? like certain kinds of specialized CAD software ? 

[free_electron]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean...

I'm pretty sure I understand what you mean and I'm damn sure you're an idiot.

alternate version:

i damn well understand what you mean but i'm going to play dumb because it would mean a shitload of extra work for me...

[free_electron]

i still remember, years ago , we were testing the first prototypes of a new asic. we got a whole 'lot' ( 25 wafers) of untested chips. like 300 chips per wafer or so.
Big boss walks in , everyone pokes head over their cubicle wall like lemmings. Boss states: Well?  i heard we have working samples ? The customer want some !

acerbic reaction of the test engineer : how many ? one , two or all three of em ? i've never seen people retract behind their cubicle walls that fast ...

[luky315]

"Senior Researcher"
= someone who is able to start MATLAB

"Automation Specialist"
= someone able to start LabVIEW

"Project Leader"
= knows persons which can start "MATLAB", "LabVIEW" and maybe "Altium Designer"

[mtdoc]

My favorite answer.

Sample questions.

Will it work?
Is the engineer here?
Where you able to repair it?

The answer:

In theory.

Well, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice...

[tszaboo]

"Yes, but..."
No!

[tautech]

Term
Torque Setting

Definition
Wind it up 'till it comes easy, then back it off 1/2 a turn.

[rollatorwieltje]

26: we delivered first prototype to the customer.
The only one of the 500 built that did anything at all...

There is a long & glorious tradition,of using the customer as Quality Control.
The only downside is,they will get sick of sending the thing back,fix it themselves & then badmouth your company all over the community.

We call that banana engineering, the product ripens at the customer.

[electr_peter]

The engineer is in the lab right now.
It surely won't be finished faster if you call in to check the status every five minutes.

When did you ask him? He has probably done by now, call him to find out.

On this project we will assign our most qualified staff. (That is, we will find some interns to take a look at it)

[TerraHertz]

"Scalable systems solution"
 = We have two of them connected together and talking.

"High reliability designed in"
 = None of the prototypes have blown up yet.

"Just in time manufacturing"
 = We are unrealistically optimistic.

"Some reliability issues have been identified"
 = It's complete crap. That's what we get for leaving the design to the lowest paid engineer. Now we'll have to allocate the high pay guy to completely re-do the design.

[SeanB]

So far has exceeded all our expectations: We didn't think it would ever work at all, and at least part of it does.

[SeanB]

We had a few that did not get properly tested during final QC: We slapped them together on Friday after a hectic search to find parts, and didn't even test them before shipping out.

[vk6zgo]

Every part in this product was chosen due to extensive reasoning.
Well I had it in my drawer, so I put it in.

This rings a bell--- we had our production held up for a day because we ran out of 1.1k resistors.

There were plenty of 1k & 1.2k resistors,& the application wasn't critical,but they wouldn't change them because that's what the original (non-Engineer) designer used.

Nobody in authority had enough knowledge themselves to let us use the other values,nor were they willing to ask the current Engineer!

[German_EE]

Term
A new paradigm in user interfaces

Definition
Now with BLUE lights on the front panel!

[VK5RC]

Term; Extensively tested       Meaning; The manager took it home to the kids

Term; Destructively tested     Meaning; The mangers kids broke it!


The term SNAFU'd sounds so much more polite in the abbreviation.

[KarlosVandango]

"It's currently Work In Progress at the moment"... meaning various things:

Haven't got a clue,
It's just working leave it alone,
Hopefully all the excitement will die down until the next "emergency" and it will be all forgotten about,
Absolutely no interest in taking it any further, hopefully soon to be forgotten about
Opps, forgot about that...

"Currently monitoring..."
See above

This thread is brilliant.. I've heard almost all of these "Buzz phases"

[GreyWoolfe]

The term SNAFU'd sounds so much more polite in the abbreviation.

Don't for get FUBAR Baker Easy.  The BE is by experts.

[German_EE]

Well, I heard that SNAFU was 'Situation Normal - All Fouled Up', but one word there is open to some interpretation. 

[miguelvp]

Well, I heard that SNAFU was 'Situation Normal - All Fouled Up', but one word there is open to some interpretation. 

So then FUBAR should be 'Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition' I guess I'll adopt the non swear word acronym from now on

[sunnyhighway]

So then FUBAR should be 'Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition'

Not be be mistaken with the identically pronounced FOOBAR, which is often used in programming to explain a concept.

[dh6kq]

"Senior Researcher"
= someone who is able to start MATLAB

"Automation Specialist"
= someone able to start LabVIEW

"Project Leader"
= knows persons which can start "MATLAB", "LabVIEW" and maybe "Altium Designer"

“Program Manager”
= knows persons which have heard about live humans, knowing how to start “MiniTab”

[dh6kq]

Term
Torque Setting

Definition
Wind it up 'till it comes easy, then back it off 1/2 a turn.

Follow-up: ...finally cover that whole junk with a tamper proof seal, to make it look really important

[tautech]

Term
Torque Setting

Definition
Wind it up 'till it comes easy, then back it off 1/2 a turn.

Follow-up: ...finally cover that whole junk with a tamper proof seal, to make it look really important

There's an alternative torque spec:

Wind it up 'till it smokes, then back it off 1/2 a turn.

Those that have stripped big nuts and bolts will know how hot they can get.