Seminar: "This Is What We Find In This Stuff."
On Monday July 25, 2005, a seminar will be held titled "This Is What We Find In This Stuff" from 10 am to 12 noon in the Building 11, Room S203 conference room. This seminar is geared for both design engineers and reviewers.
Abstract
This presentation will cover aspects of RTCA/DO-254, "Design Assurance Guidance for Airborne Electronic Hardware." Portions of DO-254 will be covered in detail and discussed and put into context for high-reliability digital design applications with a series of case studies. Examples showing faults and areas of concern will span the range from high level design to low level implementation to the tools that are now relied on for design implementation.
The presentation will start out with a basic review of digital circuits and programmable logic technology.
Regards,
-- rk
Presentation material, both abridged and unabridged, is now available: "This Is What We Find In This Stuff"
About the Title
From Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis, by Roger D. Launius, July 1994.
The Saturn second stage was built by North American Aviation at its plant at Seal Beach, California, shipped to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, and there tested to ensure that it met contract specifications. Problems developed on this piece of the Saturn effort and Wernher von Braun began intensive investigations. Essentially his engineers completely disassembled and examined every part of every stage delivered by North American to ensure no defects. This was an enormously expensive and time-consuming process, grinding the stage's production schedule almost to a standstill and jeopardizing the Presidential timetable.
When this happened Webb told von Braun to desist, adding that "We've got to trust American industry." The issue came to a showdown at a meeting where the Marshall rocket team was asked to explain its extreme measures. While doing so, one of the engineers produced a rag and told Webb that "this is what we find in this stuff." The contractors, the Marshall engineers believed, required extensive oversight to ensure they produced the highest quality work.
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July 29, 2005
Digital Engineering Institute
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