While marketing professionals communicate product information to their customers through advertisements, Facebook, and Twitter, engineers do much of their daily communication of product information through a variety of written documents, including notebooks, reports, letters, memoranda, user’s manuals, installation instructions, trade publications, and e-mails. In some large projects, engineers who are physically located in different time zones—and even in different countries—will routinely collaborate on a design. Written documentation is therefore a key and practical means for accurately conveying complex technical information.
An effective way to document engineering projects is using a design notebook, introduced in Chapter 2. An engineer’s design notebook documents the full history of a product’s development. The notebook is a written form of communication containing an accurate record of information that can be Design notebook
3.7 Communication Skills in Engineering
used to defend patents, to prepare technical reports, to document research and development tests and results, and to assist other engineers who might follow and build on the work. Because they provide a detailed account of a product’s development, design notebooks are the property of an engineer’s employer and can become important in legal patent disputes. An employer might set additional requirements for the notebook, including:
• All writing must be in ink
• The pages must be bound and sequentially numbered
• Each entry must be dated and signed by the individual performing the work
• All individuals participating in each task must be listed • Corrections or alterations must be dated and initialed
Requirements of this nature refl ect good practice, and they highlight the fact that an engineer’s notebook is a legal document that must be unimpeachable in its accuracy. Engineers rely on the technical and historical information in design notebooks to create engineering reports.
Engineering reports are used to explain technical information to others and also to archive it for future use. The purpose of a report might be to document the concept and evolution of a new product’s design or to analyze why a certain piece of hardware broke. Engineering reports can also include the results obtained by testing a product to demonstrate that it functions properly or to verify that it complies with safety standards. For these reasons, engineering reports can become important in litigation should a product cause an injury. Because they are formal documents, engineering reports can indicate whether a product was carefully developed and show whether diligence was paid to potential safety concerns.
Engineering reports generally include text, drawings, photographs, calculations, and graphs or tables of data. These reports can chronicle the history of a product’s design, testing, manufacture, and revision.
Although the format of an engineering report varies depending on the business purpose and the specifi c issue at hand, the general structure includes the following elements:
• A cover page indicates the purpose of the report, the product or technical issue involved, the date, and the names of those involved in preparing the report
• An executive summary summarizes the full report for readers, providing them with a 1- to 2-page synopsis of the problem, approach, solution and major conclusions
• If appropriate, a table of contents gives readers page numbers for major sections, fi gures, and tables
• The body of the report reviews prior work, brings the reader up-to- date, and then describes in detail the design, the supporting decisions, the results of testing, performance calculations, and other technical information
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• A conclusion highlights the major fi ndings and brings the report to closure by offering specifi c recommendations
• Appendices contain information that supports the recommendations made in the report but that is too lengthy or detailed to include in the body You should use certain practices throughout any technical report. These practices will maximize the effectiveness of your report, regardless of the reading audience.
• When you are making a set of recommendations, assumptions, conclusions, or observations, use a bulleted list with short descriptions.
• When you want to emphasize a key point, phrase, or term, use italics or bold. Use italics or bold to emphasize only the most important points;
using them too much will decrease their effect.
• Make sure of numbered sections and descriptive section headings to provide structure for the reader. Readers can get lost when reading a long report without sections to apportion and organize the information.
• Provide connecting transitions between sections. Although having sections in a report is an effective practice, unless they are connected logically and fl ow into each other, they can become detached and confusing.
• Make effective use of any references that you use, including a list of references at the end of the report. These references could include research articles, trade publications, books, Web sites, internal company documents, and other technical reports.
Graphical Communication
Essential elements of any technical report are graphical communication pieces such as drawings, graphs, charts, and tables. Many engineers tend to think and learn visually, and they fi nd that graphical forms of communication are often the best way to convey complex technical information. An important fi rst step in addressing nearly every engineering problem or design is to represent the situation graphically. Modes of graphical communication include hand sketches, dimensioned drawings, three-dimensional computer-generated renderings, graphs, and tables. Each is useful to convey different types of information. A hand drawing might be included in a design or laboratory notebook. Although a quick sketch might not be drawn to scale or address details, it could defi ne the overall shape of a piece of hardware and show some of its major features. A formal engineering drawing, produced later using a computer-aided design package, would be suffi ciently detailed that it could be given to a machine shop to have fi nished parts fabricated.
Tables and graphs are critical forms of communication for engineers who need to present a wide range of data. Tables should include columns and rows with descriptive headings and appropriate units. The data columns should be presented using consistent signifi cant digits and aligned to aid
3.7 Communication Skills in Engineering
understanding. Graphs or charts should have descriptive axis labels including appropriate units. If more than one set of data is plotted, then the graph needs to include a legend. Engineers need to carefully consider what type of graph or chart to use; the choice depends on the nature of the data and the type of insights that need to be understood by the reader.