It is the time of the year when companies hire interns for the summer. Let’s face it. Interns are hired to help with the stuff that most designers and engineers do not have the time to address. In our experience, that means libraries. Libraries are the bane of every engineering organization. They are important, but they are time-consuming and tedious. What better activity to give to a greenhorn? Right?
Time-consuming and tedious does not mean simple. Sitting an intern behind a computer, having them hack their way through an EDA tool, pulling together libraries, and then devising a way to organize the components is a recipe for disaster. How can an intern design and organize a library when they never designed a board, let alone designed several boards to get the ‘gist’ of what a library should contain?
There tend to be several unfortunate outcomes. The work of the intern may never get reviewed because the engineers and design staff are perpetually swamped. In some cases, when it is reviewed, it’s tossed because it was never developed correctly. Even if they did it correctly, who’s going to maintain it thereafter? The next intern next year?
What’s really the purpose of an intern? It is to give young engineers experience. It is not to say that having them work on libraries is a bad thing. In fact, it can be a great learning experience when they see both the PCB design process and library development. But simply starting them (and keeping them) on libraries isn’t going to get you to the desired result.
We decided to showcase what it really takes to scrubbing component libraries for any given organization. The following one-hour video illustrates our point:
Nine Dot Connects has the resources and knowledge to build new libraries and scrub your neglected libraries. We can train your organization on setup and maintenance. Or if you are already stretched in design resources, we can provide an ongoing library component creation service. For more information about our services, click on this link:
https://www.ninedotconnects.com/design-services-component
Interns and component libraries rarely mix. Assign interns to the PCB designs that will move your company’s product onward while simultaneously moving your intern’s career forward. Assign the libraries to Nine Dot Connects.