Engineering360: "How Does Reverse Engineering Work?"

Great article !

Another use of reverse engineering is to evaluate the reliability of the subject product, and to identify areas of weakness. This may include: manufacturability, design for reliability, usability (especially with consumer products), BOM identification (for use in developing a prediction / MTBF), and cosmetic issues.

This is done sometimes to compare two competitive products, or two different versions of the same model.

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John Cooper, CRE,CQE,MSEE, PE,ASME

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I worked at a company that reversed engineering a lot of their process equipment. I also knew of an engineer that liked these short cuts...

I pointed out to him, that the kind of reverse engineering he's doing is nothing more then copying,... and the problem is, you copy their mistakes and don't even realize it.

And when it comes to servicing you are lost.

I've worked on EMC (DO-160/MIL-STD/GR-1089) compliance of products for designs some thirty years old, for which components and even PWB's were no longer available.

"Once upon a time": Central Office equipment was meant to last fifty years, and I noticed an IFF RT-unit in an air-show C-5 once that I'd been trained to troubleshoot and repair in 1965.

Cortland