How many times does a prototype need to fail testing before the design engineer gives up and moves on?

Question

How many times does a prototype need to fail testing before the design engineer gives up and moves on to something productive?

Does your answer in any way change if the engineer happens to be an insane female with mental issues?

Answer 1

I guess it depends on what one is designing, for a lot of things I've seen, I'd guess if it fails on the first try one labels the design finished and sends it to manufacturing.

Is the person making changes based on the failures, before retesting, or is the person just retesting the same design over and over?
If they are making progress with repeated testing, I'd guess the number of iterations would depend on the cost of the testing vs. the potential value of the final design.


For the last item, If you are engaging in a bit hyperbole, then I suggest taking it up with HR, however my experience females tend to be predominate in that field , so I'm not sure what will happen. But I hear Burger King is hiring, so you probably won't starve. However, if you aren't using hyperbole, you might want to find out if this person carries a gun and is looking for a reason to use it (if she does you'll shut the **** up and mind your own business if you know what is good for you, seriously, insane females are nothing to joke about) Actually, I was using hyperbole about the gun (well, sort of) actually a law suit for a "hostile workplace" is more likely, but if you cost the company half a million or so, they probably are not going to be giving you any big promotions any time soon, who knows, they might even avoid or settle a suit by making this person your boss.
Good luck, I think you are going to need it.

Answer 2

Depends on how much time, money, and determination are available for the project. A more important question for you is probably, how long can you think of your colleague as "an insane female with mental issues" before your attitude leads you to quit or get fired?

Answer 3

Depends on how great the result might be. If it's a way to cure cancer, I'd guess they're willing to keep watching it fail and making minor tweaks until it works.

Second question: No. The only difference is that there might be fewer design changes.

Answer 4

it all depends on how insane, and is the insanity devoted to trying harder ?

I am guessing that it will have to fail enough to where the funding is taken away or the money just runs out.

do you work at glacier bay in hayward?

my suggestion is to think of ways to make it work.
or just cry about it for a while, that usually helps me.
or prove to management that it is a pointless project.
or just find a new job.

Answer 5

Edison had about 1400 prototypes fail before he succeeded in creating an incandescent lamp.