I vote for allowing this type of discussion: "How do you do Outsourcing", etc. It seems VERY much like other "Who does X?" and "Where can I get Y" discussions and questions we have had. Strictly speaking, neither of thoses questions involve EM/SI theory or practice and have long been tolerated. Of course, the challenge will be to keep the political and emotional content out. But this is to be expected; we have trouble keeping the emotional content out of our SI discussions.... :-( Just my $0.02... Aubrey Sparkman=20 Enterprise Engineering Signal Integrity Team Dell, Inc.=20 Aubrey_Sparkman@xxxxxxxx=20 (512) 723-3592 The Greatest Pleasure in Life is Doing what People say can't be done... -----Original Message----- From: si-list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:si-list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kenneth W. Egan Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 12:29 PM To: si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [SI-LIST] Outsourcing / methodology While I agree that the focus of the SI-List is largely technical, I have to wonder if its not appropriate perhaps to have discourse on experiences related to SI /PCB in outsourcing. I work for a company that was primarily setup to outsource the implementation of our ideas/specs etc. Had I / we known the difficulties we ended up facing, we might not have gone down that route. We had 4 Large SI/PCB physical design projects outsourced. The problems that arose were related to massive communication problems, despite fluency in English, massive overselling of actual technical talent, and refusal to take technical direction in the scope of work. For SI, we asked for solution space engineering, i.e. topology and physical placment investigation for the proper / best margin design. We supplied behavioral topologies / sims to support the physical design and extraction. We received a non functional layout, gross errors, and no simulation data. Webinars etc were used to communicate, but the quality of the work just wasn't there, or perhaps extreme ignorance. The other problem we had was in the business contracts. WITHOUT exception, each case negotiated a fee, based on a fixed bid. No one delivered on THEIR OWN schedule, and then attempted to renegotiate the contract, withholding the deliverables until said renegotiation occurred. Not a political statement. Anyone on the SI-LIST have a tried a true methodology for outsourcing ?? I thought a standard SI methodology was sufficient to drive a SOW, and constant email/phone and web interaction to contain/control technical issues. Our consistant inability to drive outsourcing forced us to do the work internally. KWE ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List technical documents are available at: http://www.si-list.net List archives are viewable at: =20 //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu =20 ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List technical documents are available at: http://www.si-list.net List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu