I was once asked to design a lifecycle testing apparatus for a mechanical device from the ground up.  All mechanical, electrical and pneumatic were to be included in the system.  The requirements for a system like this have to take into account all environmental factors and especially the stressses in system components. We are going to run billions of cycles on this piece of equipment, therefore design engineering comes into play quite a bit. The products we are testing are frictional clutches, rotary viscous dampers and slow close hinge mechanisms.  According to the program leader we need it done yesterday.   Needless to say but this is a prevailing tune in the engineering game these days.  The program leader is not an engineer, but thinks he can run an engineering project.  Imagine the conversations that occur between an engineer and complete non-engineering type on the finely crafted gantt chart.  The time spent explaining the tasks are mind blowing.  I usually get the feeling that upper management usually is frustrated because they can’t understand the language of engineering and need to feel real warm and fuzzy inside about the engineering manger and trust him to be efficient, accurate and technically proficient.   One poisonous way to treat engineering is like they are fast order cooks.   One engineer I knew loved to barrage the recipient of an engineering request with so much data they were afraid to ask or didn’t know what questions to ask, they just gave up asking questions. Hardly a good way to deal with co-workers.   I believe that a request for information from an engineer should be answered strictly with the recipients use of the information in mind.  You can prevent the collateral damage from mis-use of technical information. Believe me the recipient will love you if they knew the potential problems you saved them.  Please visit us at www.mmtech.us  so we can address your viscous damper and friction needs.