Real-Life Communication
As a textile engineer, your primary job is designing fabrics and
the processes. You have to be able to talk about what you do. "I always ask
my students, 'What good is your knowledge if you can't communicate it to others?'"
says engineer Chris Pastore.
You have the equation necessary for designing
a particular fabric. It's time for you to pass that information on to the
people who will do the designing. This is where communication
plays an important role.
"Usually, the person we are telling doesn't
want to know just the numbers. They want to know why [we have] those numbers.
What did we consider? What assumptions did we have to make? How does it compare
to something done previously? It is very important for an engineer to communicate
the entire design process and implications of the design process to the people
who are going to manufacture and sell the fabric."
This requires good
communication skills on behalf of the textile engineer.
Read the following
information. Then write up an informal memo detailing all of the answers to
the questions people may ask about how you came to this result, what considerations
and assumptions you made, and how it compares to a fabric you created last
year, which looks similar in design.
Quality control has
been tested based on the probability of defects. The new material held up
better under this test than the old material.
By running a material
cost check, you have found that this new particular product is more cost-effective
than the original material.
This particular product will last longer
than the original material. You found this out by testing the material for
over 500 hours under various temperature conditions.
Write
your memo now.