So I'm thinking about design and realize some mistakes I made. There is likely no better short cut to advancing design than these fundamental principles as stated by Elon Musk.
1. Make The Requirements Less Dumb
“Step one: Make the requirements less dumb. The requirements are definitely dumb; it does not matter who gave them to you. It’s particularly dangerous when they come from an intelligent person, as you may not question them enough. Everyone’s wrong. No matter who you are, everyone is wrong some of the time. All designs are wrong, it’s just a matter of how wrong,” explains Musk.
2. Try And Delete Part Of The Process
“Step two: try very hard to delete the part or process. If parts are not being added back into the design at least 10% of the time, [it means that] not enough parts are being deleted. The bias tends to be very strongly toward ‘let’s add this part or process step in case we need it’. Additionally, each required part and process must come from a name, not a department, as a department cannot be asked why a requirement exists, but a person can,” says Musk.
3. Simplify Or Optimize
“Step three: simplify and optimize the design. This is the most common error of a smart engineer — to optimize something that should simply not exist,” according to Musk. He, himself, has been a victim of implementing these steps out of order. He refers to a “mental straightjacket” that happens in traditional schools where you always have to answer the question regardless of whether the premise makes any sense at all.
4. Accelerate Cycle Time
“Step four: accelerate cycle time. You’re moving too slowly, go faster! But don’t go faster until you’ve worked on the other three things first,” explains Musk. Here he uses another example of how these steps should occur in order. During a wrongheaded process you should simply stop, not accelerate. He says, “If you’re digging your grave, don’t dig it faster.”
5. Automate
“The final step is: automate. An important part of this is to remove in-process testing after the problems have been diagnosed; if a product is reaching the end of a production line with a high acceptance rate, there is no need for in-process testing. I have personally made the mistake of going backwards on all five steps multiple times. In making Tesla’s Model 3, I literally automated, accelerated, simplified and then deleted,” says Musk.
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/16/elon-musk-reveals-his-5-step-engineering-protocol/
I would also add Elon Musk, "secret sauce", to achieving extraordinary things: "First principles" thinking, a decision-making strategy in which you "boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there, as opposed to reasoning by analogy."
One last one is you should always look at the least cost for materials that will serve the purpose that you are attempting to create. A very "First principles" sort of thing because if they cost too much no one will be able to afford them.
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spoiler Elon "War-Crimes Are Cool" Musk pic :DEdited last time by Chobitsu on 11/29/2023 (Wed) 02:52:46.