ENGINEERING LOGBOOKS

The engineers logbook is a work diary and a legal document; a place to report all your project work. It is intended to serve as a record of new ideas, research and development with its primary purpose being to serve as evidence of inventorship; including establishing the date of invention.

The most important rule to remember is this: when it comes to what you must record; simply record everything. Meetings, research, testing, writing, failures, successes the whole shebang.

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General Expectations: 5-6 pages of thoughtful entries per week. log of personal activity, communications, and team activity. research and engineering analysis. review of individual or team or product/project performance. organized and formatted for easy re-reading or re-use by self, team or mentor

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Basic Procedures: 1. Record the date of each entry. 2. Label each entry and record this in a table of contents, (reserve 3-4 pages at start, No. i, ii, iii, iv). 3. Use ink. Do not erase. Delete an entry by neatly drawing a single line through it. 4. Do not remove pages, and do not leave blank pages. 5. Avoid backfilling. If you realize later that you left something out, or just want to summarize something, go ahead and write it in, noting that its after-the-fact.

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6. Include everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Sketches (annotated) Class notes Meeting minutes (3Ps) + Ideas Work-in-progress Vendor notes Sources of ideas (web pages) Design reviews Individual Gantt chart Group Gant chart Rationale for decisions Project reflections Customer needs/requirements (QFD) Project Aim and Objectives Action items from meetings Calculations Design alternatives + assessment Research findings Evaluation of data/results Decision criteria Gantt chart relationships CPA/PERT charts Mind maps/Brainstorming Professional development

Logbook Prompts: If you just finished a meeting ask yourself What were the main outcomes of the meeting? Was the meeting productive, and why? What are your personal action items before the next meeting? Is the team heading in the right direction? If you just finished a brainstorming ask yourself Which ideas seem most feasible, and why? Are there enough good ideas? How could better ideas be developed based on this session?

If you just finished an internet search ask yourself What key information did I find? How does it help achieve the project objectives? Are there other sources that should be pursued? What new questions were generated?