Gawlowski Design

Managing people is certainly not an east task, there’s just so much more to it than completing a job. A good manager will be able to create a project team that is efficient and independent, which in turn will make the manager’s job easier. So, what does it take? That’s the million dollar question, and really can’t be answered quickly (but keep an eye on Project Management Source for tips and tricks). If you’d like a ‘cliff notes’ summary, go check out this list of ‘101 ways to prevent your office from hating you.’ I would *hope* that it’s all common sense, but my experience in the workplace tells me otherwise, that to many mangers, the ideas presented here will seem foreign.
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Makezine, for those of you who don’t know, is a publication focused on those who link to tinker, who like to just build (err, MAKE) things in their spare time. It’s a great read for engineering minds; their website is worth checking out too. Anyway, they posted their ‘Maker’s Bill of Rights’, and while I believe this is more geared towards the hobbyist, I feel the guidelines here are great for any good product designer to follow. Click through to the rest of this post to read a small version of it, or download a PDF here.
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PEM has a new product out, their ‘SpotFast’ fasteners. It’s a double-flush rivet, but is press fit like almost everything else they make. They have the additional ability to be used as captive pivots! Interesting; I’ve used custom countersunk semi-tubular rivets for a double flush pivot in the past, and obviously this lower cost solution would be attractive. I recently finished a chassis design that used these; I needed a double flush solution for joining two walls together; I ruled out swaging (almost chose that, but thought it’d be better to reduce the number of second op stations needed), spot welding (chassis is zinc pre-plate), and even the double flush pop rivets (MOQ problems) before settling on these. The chassis already has a lot of other press fit hardware, so this is just one more part to install (3X). Read more over at PEM’s website.