Importance of naming

When it comes to new equipment design, aside from the clear and hopefully final specifications, I would argue that the most important thing is properly naming things. Let me explain what I mean by that and demonstrate how important it actually is.

Custom automation projects start something like this. The project is sold, the deposit is made and once the schedule allows it, the kick-off meeting happens. After a brief handover mechanical engineers are typically left alone until many weeks later they’re ready to release the design to the production and purchasing departments.

Somewhere during the design process, and after a few unsuccessful attempts, the mechanical engineer would put together what’s commonly referred to in the industry as an I/O list. This is what the electrical engineer slash programmer gets to work from. This is a list of inputs, outputs, motors, actuators, etc. It is often incomplete and far from being final, which is sometimes justified. The mechanical designer typically doesn’t have the hands-on experience in the shop assembling his designs together, and even less so in making them work. What may make sense to the mechanical designer on the computer screen may make little sense once assembled, and even less once in motion. To be fair, even with modern 3D CAD software, mechanical design is.. simply hard.

Since communication is typically not our strongest side, we’re not much open to input from others. Everyone pretty much does their thing. Which is fine for the most part. But when it comes to naming things, it’s important everyone is on the same page.

Let me give you some real-world examples.