ENGINEERING HANDBOOK

This internal handbook, published in November 1974 by Digital Equipment Corporation's Office of Development, serves as a comprehensive guide for design and project engineers. It outlines the company's core philosophy, the complete lifecycle of an engineering project, and the roles and interactions with various internal support departments.

The document is structured into four main chapters:

• Chapter 1 (WHY): Details Digital's corporate philosophy, emphasizing values such as honesty, profit, quality, responsibility, customer focus, and civic duties. It introduces the company's matrix organizational structure and project management concepts like "Two-by-Two" (engineer and manufacturing manager) and "Three-by-Three" (adding marketing).
• Chapter 2 (HOW): Describes the typical phases of an engineering project, from initial concept ("Decide What to Build") through design, various review stages, prototype evaluation, comprehensive documentation, testing, transition into manufacturing, and finally, installation and customer acceptance.
• Chapter 3 (WHO): Provides detailed information on interacting with numerous internal support groups critical to product development. This includes Software Engineering, Component Engineering, Purchasing, Design Drafting, the Model Shop, Technical Documentation, Reliability Engineering, Environmental Testing, and Process Engineering, among others. For each group, it specifies when to engage them, what services they provide, and what they require from the engineer.
• Chapter 4 (HARDWARE ENGINEERING REVIEW BOARD): Explains the charter and processes of the Hardware Engineering Review Board, which is responsible for acknowledging competent engineers, fostering technical development, and formally reclassifying employees to associate engineer based on technical merit and potential.

An appendix includes the Office of Development's organization chart. The handbook aims to ensure efficient project execution, adherence to corporate standards, and effective cross-functional collaboration among engineers and supporting staff.