TABLE OF CONTENTS Shortcut equipment design methods are difficult to define. I was asked to speak at a session on Shortcut Equipment Design Methods at the 1985 ASEE Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. My paper3 on Development of Shortcut Equipment Design Methods is reproduced in Appendix 5. My introduction doesn't attempt to define these elusive methods; instead I ducked the issue and just gave a simple example.
Fortunately two other session speakers1 ,2 made a strong attempt to introduce the subject at hand. It is interesting that both men consider Shortcut Equipment Design Methods to be relatively inaccessible or hidden. Even more interestingly Dr. Woods1 refers to them as "tacit" knowledge. It is agreed that these methods are very important, so much so that the design task would be unacceptablely difficult without them. Engineers seem to intuitively realize this and squirrel them away with both hands. The most successful pack rats usually become very good process designers and troubleshooters; the guys you want on your team.
Shortcut Equipment Design Methods tend to become buried in design procedures, even computer-based ones. Therefore they often become part of the mix and don't stand free as separate entities. This is not bad. These methods need to be placed...
