Category: Interviews

Anyone who’s ever been involved in product development knows that misunderstandings in the early stages will cost time and money later on. Yet many projects still struggle to clearly define what needs to be built. Katarzyna Kot, systems engineer and member of the INCOSE Requirements Working Group, sees it happen every day. She has made it her mission to teach professionals how to write and understand requirements more effectively.

“My heart is with product development,” says Katarzyna. “You want to deliver something tangible, but that only works if the foundation is solid. For that, you need clear requirements.”

Katarzyna came to the Netherlands from Poland in 1998 to work at Philips ASA labs in Eindhoven. “I wrote code, designed software, tested products, and became fascinated by what happens before all that.”

Katarzyna Kot, trainer ‘Practical Requirements Writing’

After twelve years at Philips and NXP Semiconductors, she worked as a consultant for clients such as BAE Aerospace and ASML. The process of writing requirements seems straightforward: elicit, analyse, validate, document. In practice, however, it takes a lot of preparation. “People often get stuck wondering what they should actually do.”

The workshop

To help teams put their requirements on paper, Katarzyna developed her first workshops around 2017. What began as tailored in-company sessions has grown into a two-day training course called ‘Practical Requirements Writing‘, now open to a wider audience.

The workshop is intended for anyone involved in requirements, such as product managers, system architects, QA specialists, and domain experts. “We look at the entire product lifecycle,” Katarzyna explains. “In every phase there are different stakeholders and therefore different types of requirements.”

Participants learn how to analyse stakeholder needs, create context diagrams, structure requirements, and assess their quality in terms of completeness, consistency, feasibility, correctness, and verifiability. “We work with real-world cases so participants can apply what they learn immediately. It’s helpful when they bring their own requirements so we can review and improve them together.”

The workshop is particularly useful for professionals with a few years of experience. “They recognize the challenges from practice and immediately consider to handle them better. Once they start asking questions like ‘How do I apply this in my organization?’ or ‘How do I convince my colleagues?’ they are seeing beyond the surface.”

Challenges

Quality requirements can be tricky to define. Vague terms such as robust or user-friendly need to be quantified. “If you say something must be portable, what does that mean? Weight, dimensions? You translate abstract terms into measurable attributes. That’s how quality becomes concrete and testable.”

It’s also important to know when to stop. “Requirements must be appropriate for the level they’re intended for. There should not be too little detail, but don’t over-specify either.”

Participants often become enthusiastic once they understand why requirements are so crucial. “Some people have never had the value properly explained to them. But as soon as they see how the work contributes to the bigger picture, pride kicks in.”

Thinking

Requirements define what must be delivered. They form the foundation for design and testing and even carry contractual value. In industries such as aerospace and semiconductors, having the right requirements is a legal necessity.

Yet many organizations still struggle with them. “People often find it boring or don’t know where to start,” Katarzyna says. “They don’t see the value right away because it’s weeks of thinking without visible output.”

She compares writing requirements to planning a construction project. “Before building starts, you decide where the power outlets go, where the lights hang, and where the kitchen and washing machine connections should be. You document those decisions so the contractor can deliver exactly what you expect. That’s what requirements do, they prevent surprises for both customer and supplier.”

Before you can even write, Katarzyna adds, you must know who the user is, how the product will be used, what the context is and which standards apply. “Those are all engineering skills.”

An important part of the workshop covers templates and writing rules, such as the Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax (EARS). “That helps prevent ambiguity, but it’s not a fill-in-the-blank exercise. You have to understand what you’re writing. A tool can help — but you still have to think.”

Katarzyna also sees potential in artificial intelligence. “AI doesn’t understand context and can’t write requirements, but it can help analyse them — for example, by detecting inconsistencies.”

Her advice for both AI and templates: “Use technology as an assistant, not as a substitute for your own thinking.”

Engineering

What Katarzyna most wants to emphasize: “Requirements aren’t about writing — they’re about engineering.”

She smiles. “A colleague from the U.S. once said that, and I’d love to have it printed on a tile. Because that’s exactly what it is: good specification isn’t administration — it’s designing with words.”

This article is written by Marleen Dolman, freelancer for High Tech Systems.

This fall, Jessica Korzeniowska will be teaching her award-winning fantasy-themed training course in basic systems engineering at High Tech Institute. Bits&Chips sat down with her to talk about her background, her experiences as a systems engineer, her teaching method and the importance of reaching out to students, especially girls.

Jessica Korzeniowska hails from a family with a passion for aircraft engineering. Her grandfather was Polish and immigrated to the United Kingdom. Korzeniowska herself grew up in Milton Keynes, “a very normal town in the UK.”

Korzeniowska’s path in engineering started with a campaign during school to get more women into engineering. She thinks that’s what has made her passionate about creating a course that’s accessible for everybody. “Because I’m a product of other people trying to make engineering accessible.”

After a week’s work experience, specifically for girls, at a Royal Air Force base, she decided that engineering was what she wanted to do. “I think for me, it was a good mix of puzzles and problem-solving. I always loved puzzles and I loved building Lego, because you have to think innovatively, you have to think of new solutions. For me, engineering and the technical side of it are a mix of these two things. You can build something, you can create something. You have to problem-solve and think of ways to get there. I still enjoy it after making that decision half my lifetime ago in school.”

Know-it-all

Korzeniowska obtained a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics at the University of Southampton, where she specialized in spacecraft engineering. She found it difficult to choose between the different technical disciplines until she took a module on spacecraft systems engineering in her third year.

“The lecturer stood up at the front of the class in the very first lecture and said that systems engineers are know-it-alls. They know little pieces about all the different subsystems that come together. They have a big-picture view of what the whole engineering product must do. And truthfully, the idea of being a know-it-all appealed to me. I also thought, maybe this is what I could do, because I like all these different technical areas, but I don’t like one of them enough to only do that. Then, out of university, I applied for systems engineering jobs and got those and became more experienced in the field. It’s continued to be something I enjoy, and I feel like it was the right choice.”

More girls

Korzeniowska is one of the few women engineers in the UK. Only 9 percent are female. Working in a technical environment with really difficult problems can be challenging, Korzeniowska says.

For women, it’s difficult in another way as well, because there aren’t many female engineers and parts of how companies work are still very male-dominated. You have an additional hurdle as a minority. Not only are you trying to work on technically challenging problems, but you’re also trying to break down stereotypes, challenge people’s unconscious biases, and that can be exhausting. It’s helpful if you have a good group of people around you, if you have people who support you, but it can be quite challenging in both the technical and personal sense. “In the end, I was fed up with having to deal with all the nonsense that women have to put up with, but I still wanted to be an engineer. So, I started my own business.”

Korzeniowska stresses that it’s important to encourage more girls to go into science and engineering, because we need them to end up in an engineering career. To solve all the technical challenges, we need the most diverse set of minds that we can possibly get, Korzeniowska says. “There are all sorts of statistics about diverse teams performing better; they’re able to solve challenges more flexibly, more efficiently. And so, we need everybody’s mind on it. And it’s not just about women; other groups may also be underrepresented in engineering.”

Model-based

As Korzeniowska progressed in her career, she started to become more and more of a trainer. “I did more outreach for science and I taught science in summer camp in America. I realized that I had the skills to teach and that I was enjoying it.”

Now, Korzeniowska is a partner at Scarecrow, a model-based systems engineering consultancy firm in the UK associated with High Tech Institute. “We do training, but we also do consultancy with a whole range of companies across the UK. We implement model-based systems engineering in their work because it’s a great way to manage the information in complex projects and make sure it’s consistent, and it helps us solve the problems. My background is space and nuclear fusion, so a lot of the consultancy I’m doing is still in the nuclear or energy domain.”

Korzeniowska is also an author of engineering textbooks, but she writes fiction stories as well. She’s using model-based techniques to help her model her fiction stories. “It’s a really great mechanism to handle a lot of information and keep track of everything, like the different characters and locations.”

Adventure quest

In her three-day course, Korzeniowska uses a fantasy-themed adventure quest to guide participants along their engineering training journey. There have been studies that show that people respond to storytelling, particularly in technical aspects, so she uses this to engage participants.

Korzeniowska remembers also her own experience with Lego. “I got into Lego when I was bought a Harry Potter set. I had never shown an interest in Lego before, but having a story associated with it and characters that I knew and to play out a certain scene, really engaged me in a building and construction method. I thought that this was just me, but there was actually a study done in the US that showed girls were more likely to interact with construction and building toys if there was a story to go with it.”

Korzeniowska started to think about how she could use methods that she knew had helped her learn, in her training and maybe also attract people who otherwise wouldn’t be in engineering. That’s where the adventures come from. “I wondered if you could take people through a training course of the V-model, as if they were walking through an enchanted valley. You journey up and down the valley in the same way you would in an engineering project, but then make it like it’s a quest.”

The Netherlands

Korzeniowska also spent a year in Leiden, where she got a job at the European Space Agency. “I graduated and then two weeks later, I turned up in the Netherlands with a suitcase and some euros. I was like, all right, let’s start a new life.”

She worked as a graduate trainee in ESA’s education office. “This is another aspect of my career that has helped me toward the training: we were thinking about how we can take industry-level space standards and translate them in a way that we can teach to students, so they can get hands-on experience of creating spacecraft and launching rockets. I loved living in the Netherlands. I’m hoping to be over here a lot more often, now that I’m delivering this training.”

This article is written by Titia Koerten, editor for High Tech Systems.

Claus Neeleman has been elected High Tech Institute’s Teacher of the Year for the second time in ten years. After the in-company course How to be successful in the Dutch high-tech work culture, he received the maximum score from the participants. He never would have thought that his expertise would catch on so well with technicians.

“I think training is a fantastic profession,” says Claus Neeleman, “mainly because you can add something. You really touch people. You also get feedback from course participants that they’ve learned something. Some people even made a mental switch when it comes to work. I also like it when they say that what they’ve learned can also be put to good use in their private lives.”

After studying occupational and organizational psychology, Neeleman went to work in recruitment: assessments, potential determinations of applicants, personality tests, role plays and interviews. During the debriefing of such an assessment, a colleague got him thinking. “He said: gosh, you’re good at explaining things, why don’t you become a trainer or a teacher? That was funny, because I was already considering doing that.”

His colleague gave Neeleman that extra push, but becoming a trainer wasn’t easy. “You needed a lot of experience at most training agencies and that meant either a very long development process or you had to find an alternative path.” He ended up at a reintegration company where he was able to teach right away. “That was an opportunity for me to gain experience and see if I liked it. After that, I had a real opportunity to start working for training agencies. That’s how I got into the business.”

Neeleman now specializes in communication. “Communication training is the primary focus, but I do sales training and leadership training as well. I top that off with some acting, also during training. It’s pretty broad what I do.”

Observe and analyze

Claus Neeleman joined High Tech Institute when Jaco Friedrich asked him to provide leadership training for engineers. “I remember thinking at the time: nice, this is something new. I was also curious whether it would work out, because I was more in the consulting world and not in the technical sector. For me, it was a matter of trying it out: does my expertise fit with that technical world? Maybe they won’t find the psychology behind it so interesting, or too soft. But there’s actually a great need for soft skills training among technicians. They also really enjoy it.”

Neeleman sees common ground between the job of a trainer and the high-tech world. “Technicians observe and analyze. So do psychologists. We have models and we work in a detailed way. There’s a big technical side to that, especially in assessments. We look very minutely at a conversation and we attach scores to it. The score can be satisfactory or just below, and then we can explain why that isn’t satisfactory and what someone has to show more of to get a good score. That’s quite technical, too. There are a lot of models behind it. People can be quite complicated. You can also approach that in a technical way and see what you can do with that. I really enjoy doing that.”

Comfortable

Neeleman finds it funny that employees run into the same communication issues nine times out of ten. “It’s always about giving feedback. This is really hard, because a lot depends on it. You have a relationship to maintain; you see them again the next day. Even if you know how to do it, it’s still challenging to have a constructive conversation. Dealing with conflict is another theme that often comes up, as does dealing with resistance. I think that’s about the top three.”

Neeleman himself is often told in evaluations that he gives good feedback. That’s also a requirement for a trainer, he believes. “I think what course participants mean by that is that I pay attention to the details. I always watch when they do exercises among themselves and then I really try to help them work effectively and I’m able to explain it well. I also think it’s very important that there’s an open atmosphere and that we can have a laugh during training sessions.”

What he most frequently hears back is his ability to create a safe atmosphere in which people can be themselves, a prerequisite for learning, according to Neeleman. “If you don’t feel safe, you start playing a role or you just don’t show yourself at all. I need it for myself too, to work well. If people aren’t open or there’s tension within the group, I don’t feel comfortable as a trainer either.”

Three tips

The Dutch high-tech world is known for its somewhat confrontational way of communicating. Many companies say they’re successful precisely because of this open, yet somewhat challenging culture, but not everyone can handle it well. For technicians who have trouble with the Dutch corporate culture and find it difficult to have their say, Neeleman is happy to give a heads-up. In a training course, you can actually learn to show yourself more. His three tips are: practice, experience and reflect.

Practice, because it can be uncomfortable in the beginning. The first time you stand up and say “I disagree” with people around you who think differently, it causes a lot of stress. And so, the trick is to experience that stress and then find that you survive despite that stress and that in the end, it’s better than saying nothing. The third tip is: reflect on what you do. Suppose you try something in practice and it works well, or not so well. Look back on it and name what went well and reward yourself for that. Also mention what you can do better next time and don’t be too hard on yourself. Neeleman: “You can make reflecting more effective if you do it together with colleagues. For example, with someone you know who does things differently. If you apply those tips, you’ll come a long way.”

 

This article is written by Titia Koerten, editor for High Tech Systems.

An accredited proof of up-to-date knowledge without having to return to the classroom. Hans Krikhaar is a driving force behind the introduction of microcredentials at the Dutch Society for Precision Engineering. In this interview he shares his view on the opportunities this offers.

Hans Krikhaar experienced it himself: after seven years in the field of construction engineering, returning to his original field of study – mechanical engineering – proved to be quite a challenge. Companies wanted verifiable knowledge in this field and were not willing to give him the opportunity to demonstrate his skills and knowledge on the job. In the end, that opportunity came from Philips Lighting, as Krikhaar had demonstrable experience with computer-aided design that the Eindhoven-based company was investing in. Had he been able to prove his up-to-date knowledge in mechanical engineering through microcredentials, his career might have turned out very differently.

For professionals who start working full-time after graduation, it is important to continue to develop their knowledge. Unfortunately, a long-term education program is hard to maintain next to a job, both in terms of time and costs. Workers can, however, benefit greatly from shorter training programs as they can immediately apply the gained knowledge. For one’s position in the market, formal recognition of this knowledge is very important.

In come the microcredentials: recognized digital diplomas or certificates linked to compact, validated courses. Professionals can use these to prove their specifically acquired knowledge or skills without the need to complete a full degree program.

From Philips to education

Krikhaar studied mechanical engineering at the University of Twente. He chose Twente because of the space and nature around it.

In the 1980’s, he came into contact with computer-aided design while working at Comprimo, a company that developed oil refineries and chemical plants. At the time, construction drawings were still made by hand, and computers were just starting to support this process. However, when he wanted to return to mechanical engineering after seven years in construction engineering, companies were reluctant to hire him. “A system such as microcredentials can help people in similar situations demonstrate their current knowledge, which makes them more attractive for companies,” Krikhaar explains.

Eventually, Krikhaar obtained his PhD at Philips Lighting, on computer-aided design and manufacturing within mechanical engineering, which allowed him to continue his career in that field. He later worked at Calumatic, Philishave, ASML, and as an independent consultant, before becoming a professor of Smart Manufacturing at Fontys Engineering in 2018.

The request to set up microcredentials came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when ASML wanted to have developed a Manufacturing Excellence course. “In the spirit of lifelong learning, management wanted microcredentials to be awarded to that course,” Krikhaar says. “That’s when I started exploring this form of course validation.”

The Dutch Society for Precision Engineering (DSPE), for which Krikhaar was already active at the time, has had a certification program for post-academic training since 2008, stemming from Philips’ former Center for Technical Training. Courses that the DSPE evaluates are assessed by field professionals for both quality and societal relevance. “The DSPE doesn’t teach courses, they only certify them,” Krikhaar clarifies. “That independence makes our certification particularly valuable, since we’re not judging our own work.”

To keep up with the times, Krikhaar had long believed DSPE should digitize her diplomas and certificates. He connected with Wilfred Rubens, an expert in microcredentials. With his knowledge Krikhaar is now digitizing and transforming the certificates of DSPE-accredited courses.

The value of microcredentials

To harbour the quality of microcredentials the DSPE considers four core values when awarding them. Firstly, they critically evaluate the course’s learning outcomes: what is the added value for the professional? Secondly, the level of the course is taken into account. Courses range from vocational to master’s level, and this is reflected in the microcredential. The third factor is workload: how many days or sessions does the course take? Finally, the assessment method is important. A diploma is awarded when the participant has demonstrated mastery of the learning outcomes. If there is no individual assessment, a certificate of participation is issued instead.

By taking courses needed for current projects, the professional builds a portfolio of competencies. Microcredentials from these courses can be accessed and downloaded by the professional through a secure system. The credentials can also be linked to their LinkedIn profile, which can benefit their career.

To date, DSPE has awarded microcredentials to 49 courses. Participants who completed one of these in 2023 or 2024 received digital recognition retroactively. Krikhaar ultimately hopes to see microcredentials attached to over 200 courses.

“This way of certifying needs to gain traction. We aim to achieve this by defining ‘learning pathways’: sets of courses that, once you completed them all, show that you’ve gained specific knowledge. For example, after a vocational course in milling and turning, you could follow the specified pathway to become an instrument maker at the Leiden Instrument Makers School. Once you complete all the relevant courses, you are officially certified as an instrument maker.”

Microcredentials and the future

Although Krikhaar has reached retirement age, he remains active in precision engineering about three days a week. For example, he organizes the Dutch Precision Week around the precision fair in November. Why is he so invested in microcredentials?

“Precision technology is developing incredibly fast. It is important for people in the field to keep up with their knowledge. In addition to what I’ve said about how microcredentials work, the system can also help colleagues in HR, who often lack technical training, in guiding employees toward the right development paths. The way DSPE works enables them to better support these engineers. I think that’s a great development.”

Krikhaar hopes that DSPE’s microcredentials will eventually be recognized as professional qualifications and intends to keep working towards that goal. The organization has been around since 1954 and is run entirely by professionals, for professionals, which helps safeguard the quality of the certifications. In order to maintain independence, and to not compete with the providers they assess, the DSPE intends to stay away from offering courses itself.

When asked whether he will roll out microcredentials across Europe, perhaps through the European Society for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology (EUSPEN), Krikhaar is brief: “That’s not something I’ll take on, but if someone else wants to do this, that would be fine.”

This article is written by Marleen Dolman, freelancer for High Tech Systems.

Erik Manders and Marc Vermeulen take on a leading role in the training “Design Principles for Precision Engineering” (DPPE). The duo takes over from Huub Janssen, who was the face of the training for seven years. Part two of a two-part series: training, trends, and trainers.

When it comes to knowledge sharing within the Eindhoven region, the “Design Principles for Precision Engineering” (DPPE) training is considered one of the crown jewels. The course originated in the 1980s within the Philips Center for Manufacturing Technology (CFT), where the renowned professor Wim van der Hoek laid the foundation with his construction principles. Figures like Rien Koster, Piet van Rens, Herman Soemers, Nick Rosielle, Dannis Brouwer, and Hans Vermeulen built upon it.

The current DPPE course, offered by Mechatronics Academy (MA) through the High Tech Institute, is supported by multiple experts. The lead figures among them have the special task of keeping an eye on industry trends. “Our lead figures signal trends, new topics, and best practices in precision technology,” says Adrian Rankers, a partner at Mechatronics Academy responsible for the DPPE training.

When asked about his ‘fingerprints’ on the DPPE training, Janssen refers to his great inspiration, Wim van der Hoek. “I’m not a lecturer nor a professor with long stories. I like to lay down a case, work on it together, and then discuss it. With Van der Hoek, we would sit around a large white sheet of paper, and then the problems would be laid on the table.”

Virtual Play

Janssen says that as a lead figure, he was able to shape the DPPE training. He chose to give participants more practical assignments and discuss those cases in class. Rankers: “Right from the first morning. After we explain the concept of virtual play, we ask participants to start working with it.” Janssen: “Everyone thinks after our explanation: I’ve got it. But when they put the first sketches on paper, it turns out it’s not that simple. That’s the point: because when they do the calculations themselves, it really sticks.”

On the last day of the training, participants are tasked with designing an optical microscope in groups of four. Janssen: “They receive the specifications: the positioning table with a stroke of several millimeters, a specific resolution, stability within a tenth of a micrometer in one minute, etc. Everything covered in this case has been discussed in the days prior: plasticity, friction, thermal center, and more.”

Vermeulen: “The fun part is that people must work together, otherwise, they won’t make it.”

Janssen: “We push four tables together, and they really have to work the four of them as a team. Then you see some people reaching for super-stable Zerodur or electromagnetic guidance or an air bearing, and someone else says: ‘Also consider the cost aspect.’”

Not Easy

Participants experience the difficulty level very differently, regardless of their educational background, Janssen observes: “It depends on their prior knowledge, but it’s challenging for everyone. People are almost always highly educated, but when they need to come up with a design, they often don’t know whether to approach it from the left or right.”

However, he believes it’s not rocket science. “It’s not complex. It’s about calculations that you should be able to do in five minutes on a beer mat.”

All four of them agree that it’s about getting a feel for the material. “You should also be able to quantify it, quickly calculate it,” emphasizes Vermeulen.

Janssen offers a simple thought experiment: “Take two rubber bands. Hold them parallel and pull them. Then knot them in series and pull again. What’s the difference? What happens? Where do you have to pull hardest to stretch them a few centimeters? Not everyone has an intuitive grasp of that.”

Rankers: “It’s a combination of creativity and analytical ability. You have to come up with something, then do some rough calculations to see how it works out. Some people approach it analytically, others can construct wonderfully. They may not know exactly why it works, but they have a great feel for it.”

Calculation Tools

Creativity and design intuition cannot be replaced by calculation tools, they all agree. “You can let a computer do the calculations,” says Janssen, “but then you still have to assess it. What if it’s not right? There are thousands of parameters you can tweak. It’s about feeling for construction, knowing where the pain points are. You don’t need a calculation program for that.”

Manders: “We talk about the proverbial beer mat because you want to make an initial sketch or calculation in a few minutes. If you let a computer calculate, you’re busy for days. Building an initial model takes a long time. But a good constructor can put that calculation on paper in a few minutes. If afterwards you are busy for an hour, you have a good sense of which direction it’s going. I think that’s the core of the construction principle course: simple calculations, not too complicated, choose a direction, and see where it goes.”

White Sheet of Paper

Manders observes that highly analytical people are often afraid to put the first lines on a blank sheet of paper. To start with a concept. “Often, they are so focused on the details that they get stuck immediately. Creatives start drawing and see where it goes.”

For Manders, training is a way to stay connected with the field of construction. “In my career, I’ve expanded into more areas, also towards mechatronics. But my anchor point is precision mechanics. By training, I can deepen my knowledge and tell people about the basics. It sharpens me as well. Explaining construction principles in slightly different ways helps me in my coaching job.”

He often learns new things during training. “Then I get questions that make me really think. If it’s really tough, I’ll come back to it outside the course. I’ll puzzle it out at home and prepare a backup slide for the next time.”

Vermeulen says he gets a lot of satisfaction from training a new generation of technicians. “That gives me energy. For the current growth in high-tech, it’s also necessary to share knowledge. That applies to ASML, but also to VDL and other suppliers. If we don’t pass on our knowledge, we’ll all hit a wall.”

Complacency

Janssen observes that a certain bias or complacency is common among designers. “When there are many ASML participants in the class, they immediately pull out a magnetic bearing when we ask for frictionless movement. But in some cases, an air bearing or two rollers will do. I’m exaggerating, but designers sometimes have a bias because of their own experience or work environment. With every design question, they really need to go back to the basics, feet on the ground, and start simple.”

Vermeulen: “The simplest solution is usually the best. Many designers aren’t trained that way. I often see copying behavior. But the design choice they see their neighbor make is not necessarily the best solution for their own problem. You could perfectly fine use a steel plate instead of a complex leaf spring. It works both ways, but if you choose the expensive option, you better have a good reason.”

Quarter

“It’s always fun to see how Marc starts,” says Rankers about Vermeulen’s approach in training. “When he talks about air bearings, he asks participants if they use them, what their biggest challenge is, where they run into problems. In a quarter of an hour, he explores the topic and knows what’s familiar to them. Who knows a lot, who knows nothing, or who will be working with it in a project soon.”

Vermeulen: “In my preview, I go over the entire material without diving deep into it. That process gives me energy. In fact, the whole class is motivated, but the challenge is to really engage them at the start. You don’t know each other yet. But I want to be able to read them, so to speak, to get them involved. They need to be eager, on the edge of their seats.”

So it’s not about the slides, Vermeulen emphasizes once again. “It’s about participants coming with their own questions. They all have certain things in mind and are wondering how to make it work.” That’s the reason for the extensive round of questions at the start. “I ask about the different themes they’re encountering. Then I use that as a framework. When a slide about a topic they mentioned comes up, I go into it a bit. That makes it much easier for them to follow. They stay focused.”

Basic Training

DPPE is a basic training. Manders and Vermeulen don’t expect major changes in the material covered, though they see opportunities to bring the content more up to date.

However, participants must still learn fundamental knowledge and principles. Janssen on stiffness, play, and friction—the topics he teaches: “I spend a day and a half on those, but they’re three crucial things. If you don’t grasp these, you’ll never be a good designer. That’s the foundation.” Concepts like passive damping come up briefly, but that’s a complex topic. No wonder Mechatronics Academy offers a separate three-day training for that.

The “degrees of freedom” topic that Manders teaches is another fundamental element. “That just takes some time. You have to go through it,” says Manders.

Vermeulen: “Then comes the translation to hardware. Once participants are familiar with spark erosion, they need to have the creativity to turn to cheaper solutions in some cases. We could emphasize the critical assessment of production method costs more. If you get a degree of freedom in one system with spark erosion, you shouldn’t automatically reach for this expensive production method next time. We could delve more into that translation to hardware. It’s also good to strive for simplicity there.”

Overdetermined

By the way, Wim van der Hoek also looked critically at costs. Rankers: “A great statement from him was that many costs in assembly are caused by things being overdetermined.”

The terms “determined” or “overdetermined” in precision construction essentially refer to this: A rigid body has six degrees of freedom (3 translations and 3 rotations) that fully define its position and orientation. If you want to move that object in one direction using an actuator, you need to fix the other degrees of freedom with a roller bearing, air bearing, or leaf spring configuration.

If you as a designer choose a configuration of constraints that fixes more than five degrees of freedom, the constraints may interfere with each other. Rankers: “That’s called statically overdetermined, and you might get lucky if it works, as long as everything is neatly aligned. The people doing that have ‘golden hands,’ as Wim van der Hoek put it. But the neat alignment can’t change, like with thermal expansion differences.” Especially the gradients and differences in expansion of various components play a big role.

Rankers: “Of course, it’s impossible to perfectly align everything. It also changes over time during use. So internal forces arise within the object you wanted to hold or position due to the ‘fighting’ between the constraints. If that object is a delicate piece of optics that must not deform, you’ve got a big problem. That means you need to avoid overdetermination in ultra-precision machines.”

Vermeulen: “So if you design it to be better determined, it’s easier to assemble, and that gives you a bridge to costs.”

Rankers also notes that the cost aspect should receive more attention than before. He thinks guest speakers could enrich the training with practical examples. Showing examples of affordable and expensive versions. Vermeulen immediately offers an example where you need to guide a lens. “If you make a normal linear guide, the lens sinks a little on the nanometer scale. You can compensate with a second guide, but then the solution might be twice as expensive and twice as complex. Is that really necessary? So as a designer, you can challenge the optics engineer: ‘You want to make it perfect, but that comes at a high cost. We need to pay attention to these things.’”

This article is written by René Raaijmakers, tech editor of Bits&Chips.

Erik Manders and Marc Vermeulen are taking a leading role in the “Design Principles for Precision Engineering” (DPPE) training. The duo is taking over from Huub Janssen, who was the lead for seven years. Part one of a two-part series: trends in construction principles.

Precision technology is not a fixed concept; this toolkit for high-tech engineers evolves over time. To gain insight into this, High Tech Systems magazine invited Huub Janssen, Erik Manders, Adrian Rankers, and Marc Vermeulen for a discussion about the precision world, the changing trends and requirements in high-tech, and what it’s like to work in this field. In the second part, we will delve into the impact this has on the Design Principles for Precision Engineering (DPPE) training.

Like Janssen, Manders and Vermeulen have been active in high-tech for decades, although their roles and interests differ. Janssen is the owner of a high-tech engineering firm and was the figurehead of the DPPE training for seven years. The new duo setting the broad direction now works at ASML, Manders as Principal Systems Architect for Mechatronics, and Vermeulen as Principal Mechanical System Architect. Adrian Rankers, who previously worked as Head of Mechatronics Research at Philips CFT, is now a partner at Mechatronics Academy (MA) and is responsible for the DPPE training that MA offers through the High Tech Institute.

 

“Thirty years ago, positioning to the micrometer was a field from another planet,” said Janssen in 2019 when he became the face of the DPPE. When he graduated in the mid-eighties, designers were still working with micrometers. “Over the years, this has shifted to nanometers,” he observes today.

Since the early nineties, with his company JPE, he has been developing mechatronic modules for high-tech, scientific instruments for research, and more recently, systems for quantum computers. “If you talk to those physicists now, they talk about picometers without blinking an eye. To me, that almost feels philosophical.”

Erik Manders and Marc Vermeulen have been involved as trainers in the Design Principles for Precision Engineering training for years. The training was originally developed at the Philips Center for Manufacturing Technology (CFT), where both started their careers. Vermeulen has been part of a group of DPPE trainers at Mechatronics Academy for several years. Manders taught the course for many years with Herman Soemers at Philips Engineering Services, until the mechatronics group of this activity was transferred to ASML in 2023.

Not straightforward

The concept of precision technology is difficult to define. It’s a toolbox that offers designers significant room for creativity. Give ten designers the same problem, and you’ll receive different solutions that vary in both direction and detail. The design approach differs greatly depending on the application but is also subject to trends and changing requirements. In a few years, the requirements and approaches may barely change, but look ahead ten years, and the designs and methods that are used to bring them to fruition can be entirely different.

Interferometer Suspension

There is no holy grail or universal design rules in precision technology. Best practices differ depending on the market, system, or application. Huub Janssen discovered this when he first joined ASML freshly out of school. “At first, I learned to build something statically determined from Wim van der Hoek,” he says. “But at ASML, I found that this approach didn’t always work. For the PAS2500 wafer stepper, we initially developed a new interferometer suspension to measure the position of the stage in the x and y directions. This design followed Van der Hoek’s principles, with elastic elements and so forth. But when we tested it, we found that there was no damping. It is reproducible, but everything kept vibrating. It was a disaster. I learned that you can’t just apply certain Van der Hoek construction principles everywhere; you have to know when to use them.”

Increasing Demands

The ever-increasing demands for precision strongly influence design choices. Vermeulen explains, “With increased accuracy, complexity increases. Each time you have to peel away the problem a little further. You continuously encounter new physical phenomena that didn’t matter before but now have an impact. You then need to get to the core: what’s happening physically here?”

Vermeulen gives the example of the application of passive damping on the short-stroke wafer stage of lithographic scanners. ‘That was quite a hurdle that we had to take around 2015, because what you design has to be predictable. If you think in terms of stiffness and mass, that is still possible. But in the beginning we did not know how a damper would behave.

Would it age? Creep? We had to understand that completely. That meant modeling how damping affects the dynamics. We couldn’t match that at first, but when we finally got it right we could match the measurements and the model. Only after we were reasonably sure that we understood it, could we take the next step. If you don’t do this properly, it remains guesswork, you can’t predict the behavior well and you will be surprised later.’

Another example is problems that can arise when increasing productivity. Especially with water-cooled components, it is a challenge to keep this under control. Everyone knows the bursting of the water pipe when you quickly close a tap. In the same way, acceleration creates pressure waves in systems with water cooling. ‘You have to dampen those waves, because pressure pulses cause deformation’, says Vermeulen, ‘you have to understand how that works.’

Manders adds, “On a micrometer scale, you wouldn’t notice this, but on a nanometer scale, even a glass block deforms if the pressure changes. This is a physical issue at the system level.”

Simplicity

The main approach is to strive for simplicity. This leads to robust and cost-effective constructions. But there’s another important reason to keep things simple. Once a chosen solution is embedded in a product, designers who build on it won’t quickly change that subsystem. “If you opt for complexity, you’ll never be able to remove it,” summarizes Rankers. “If you don’t enforce simplicity from the start, you’ll keep struggling with it. It’ll keep nagging at you.”

Janssen: “If it works, no one dares to touch it. If you build in reserves, no one will later suggest removing them. Because everyone will counter: ‘Are you sure it will still work then? You can guess what the outcome will be.'”

Vermeulen: “Exactly. No one dares to go back. You start with a design, set up a test rig, and once it has more or less proven itself, you go with it.”

Manders: “You must avoid complex adjustments or calibrations because they will never go away. The project team that comes afterward will say, ‘We’ll just copy this because it works. We’ll do it the same way.'”

These are tough decisions, says Janssen. Design choices can vary greatly and depend on the application and market. “For semiconductor equipment, you want to recalculate everything a hundred times before you build the machine. Designers may build in some reserve to make the construction work. But small margins in various budgets sometimes make a solution impossible or overly complicated. Sometimes you really have to pull out all the stops to achieve that last bit of precision. But once it’s done, you can’t go back.”

At his company JPE, Janssen encourages his designers to sometimes take more risks. “It can often be cheaper. Something thinner and a little less stiff can be finished faster and more cheaply. But you really have to dare to do it.”

Manders: “But sometimes reserve costs almost nothing. By designing smartly, accuracy can often be achieved without going through many extra manufacturing steps. For example, by smartly looking at whether you can mill multiple surfaces in one setup and take advantage of today’s highly accurate milling machines. In any case, it’s important to develop a feel for it.”

System architect

Manders started at Philips CFT as a designer. In recent years, he had a more coaching role as a systems architect in the mechatronics department of Philips Engineering Services, which transitioned to ASML in 2023, working with a team of about a hundred colleagues and technicians at suppliers. “Yes, then you’re in a lot of reviews.”

He sees his role as “maintaining the overview between the disciplines.” “I try to be the cement between the bricks. In the end, it has to function. That’s the game.”

Twenty Balls

Janssen chose to start his own company early in his career, Janssen Precision Engineering, later JPE. Manders and Vermeulen, on the other hand, work in a larger organization where they must coordinate with many colleagues and suppliers. “I have to keep twenty balls in the air with challenging technique,” describes Janssen, who also sees his job as a hobby. “Meanwhile, I have to look at what the market needs. We’re not a large company, but we have a significant impact worldwide.”

What’s it like in a much larger organization like ASML? Vermeulen says, “Someone who just joined will be working on a very small part. The challenge is to help them understand how their contribution fits into the bigger picture.”

Manders adds, “Thousands of people work on our machines. You can’t immediately grasp it as a newcomer. The complexity is overwhelming.”

The founders at ASML, according to Manders, had the advantage of starting with simpler devices. “They could understand those better, and that was their anchor point when the machines became more complex. People who join later can’t immediately see the whole picture. People who only start working can’t see the forest from the trees at first. They have to grow into it and discover the context over time.”

Conductor

In such a large team, everyone has their role. “What the servologists and flow dynamics experts in my team calculate, I couldn’t do myself,” says Manders, who sees himself more as a conductor. “I try to give less experienced colleagues direction and a feel for the context. Why are we doing this? Where are we heading? You try to make the team play together and create something beautiful. But a good orchestra essentially plays on its own.”

Rankers adds, “On your own, you can’t accomplish these complex modules. It’s like a football team. The coach doesn’t score goals either.”

Vermeulen recognizes this. “I’m responsible for the technology, but also for how we work together. This is probably half of my time: providing leadership. You have influence over how the team collaborates. As a systems architect, you bring everything together and provide direction. You ask your experts what the best solution is from their perspective, and that leads to a balanced design. There can be a hundred or a hundred and fifty people in a team, but how they work together is key.”

Big projects

Manders regrets not constructing things himself anymore, but he finds his current role just as challenging. “Now, I’m more focused on keeping everything balanced and making system choices in large projects.”

Vermeulen relates to this role as a coach. “It’s about zooming out and zooming in. Keeping an eye on the big picture.”

Manders explains, “Lots of one-on-one discussions, crouching next to colleagues, brainstorming where we need to go. Sometimes you have to zoom out and realize you’re on the wrong track. The approach needs to change entirely.”

Manders refers to this as “the charm of designing”. “All the considerations you make with your team lead to something beautiful if it’s done right. It’s exciting to see it grow from the side as an architect. Sometimes, people come up with very surprising ideas at the coffee machine. The process of creating a design is magical. You just can’t design the more complex modules alone.”

Vermeulen adds, “One plus one equals three. One person says something, which sparks an idea in another person. A third then comes up with something surprising, and so on.”

Janssen concludes, “But eventually, someone needs to choose a direction.”

This article is written by René Raaijmakers, tech editor of Bits&Chips.

ASML engineer Buket Şahin has become the first person to get the ECP2 Silver certificate. For Şahin that’s just the side-effect of her passion for learning. She likes to dig into new fields, and became a better system engineer because of it.

When Buket Şahin was doing her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in Istanbul, she joined the solar car and formula SAE teams of her university. A decision that quickly made her realise the limitations of her knowledge. It put her on a lifelong track to learn about fields different from her own.

“That’s when it all started”, Şahin recalls. “I saw how necessary it was to learn about other disciplines. Obviously, I knew the mechanical domain well, but suddenly I had to work with, for example, electrical engineers. I couldn’t understand what they were talking about, and I really wanted to.”

Şahin eventually graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a masters in mechatronics, besides doing an MBA. She first worked as a systems engineer in the Turkish defence industry, before making the transfer to ASML in 2012. She started by working in development & engineering on the NXT and NXE platforms. Currently she works as a product safety system engineer for the EUV machines of ASML.

During that journey, she persistently sought out new knowledge, taking a score of courses in fields such as electronics, optics and mechatronics. At the end of 2024 she became the person who achieved the first ECP2 Silver certificate. ECP2 is the European certified precision engineering course programme that emerged from a collaboration between euspen and DSPE. To receive the certificate she had to take 35 points worth of ECP2-certified courses.

“My goal wasn’t to achieve this certification”, she laughs. “But in the end it turned out I was the first one to get it.”

Helicopter view

Şahin’s position at ASML combines system engineering with a view on safety. “We are responsible for the whole EUV machine from a safety point of view”, she notes. “This includes internal and external alignment, overseeing the program and managing engineers and architects.”

The team in which she works contains up to hundreds of people, of which there is a core team of around fifteen system engineers. One of those is a safety specific system engineer role, such as the one she fulfils.

Taking that wider, systems, perspective, which combines different fields, is something she likes. It allows her to put into practice the different things she learned throughout her career. “I have broad interests”, says Şahin. “I like all kinds of sub-fields of science and engineering. In systems engineering I can pursue that curiosity. That’s also the reason why I like learning, and taking courses so much. As a system engineer you need to know a complex system, and the technical background of the parts. You need to be able to dig deeper into the design. You need to be able to dive into the different disciplines, but at the same time maintain a helicopter view. Maintaining that balance is something that I like very much.”

Buket Şahin at ASML’s experience center. 

NASA handbook

Şahin started taking courses as soon as she landed at ASML. She realised that she should expand her knowledge beyond what her degrees had taught her. “They were very theoretical”, she admits. “They weren’t very applied. The research and development industry in Turkey isn’t as mature as it is in the Netherlands, particularly for semiconductors. In the Netherlands there’s a very good interaction between universities and industry. I wanted to gain that hands-on knowledge. So I started with courses in mechatronics and electronics. Then I wanted to learn about optics, a very relevant field when you work at ASML. I just continued from there.”

Curiosity is a driving force for Şahin. “Some courses I took because I needed the knowledge in my work, but others were out of curiosity. I wanted to develop myself and learn new things. The courses allowed me to do that.”

Interestingly, she didn’t take any courses on system engineering though. “I was mainly looking to gain a deeper knowledge in various technical disciplines”, she looks back. “My first job was as a system engineer, but the way the role is defined in different companies varies heavily. System engineers in the semiconductor industry require knowledge of the different sub-fields of the industry. An ASML machine is also very complex, so you really need to update what you know. Things can change fast, and you need to stay up to date. That’s why learning is such a big part of my career.”

She did learn how to be a system engineer within ASML, both by learning on-the-job, and by taking internal courses. “There are internal ASML system engineering trainings”, says Şahin. “That’s why I didn’t need external courses. Also, I learned the field from the NASA System Engineer Handbook back in Turkey. That’s also the methodology that ASML uses.”

Hands-on knowledge

When Şahin looks back on all the courses she took since she moved to the Netherlands, it’s the practical ones that stand out. “The most important thing I learned was applied knowledge”, she says. “Going to university taught me the theory, but it’s the day-to-day insights that are important. I particularly like it when courses teach you rules of thumb, pragmatic approaches and examples from the industry itself. That’s the key knowledge for me. It particularly helps when the instructors are from the industry, so they can show us what they worked on themselves.”

Since 2012, learning has also become easier. “When I started there weren’t as many learning structures to guide you. High Tech Institute today, for example, has an easy to access course list. In 2012, however, I had to do much more research, and courses weren’t advertised as much and they were even only in Dutch. I had to ask colleagues and find out for myself. If I had to start today, things would have been much easier.”

“If it helps you achieve your goal, it’s very easy to take courses when you’re working at ASML”, says Şahin.

At ASML they are happy about Şahin’s new certification, and the hunger she shows to learn new things. “My managers always supported me”, says Şahin. “We define development goals, and select the training that would achieve those targets. If it helps you achieve your goal, it’s very easy to take courses when you’re working at ASML.”

Şahin is, for now, far from done. For her the learning never stops. “I just started a masters programme at the KU Leuven. It’s an advanced master in safety engineering, and it’s connected to my position at ASML. My short-term goal is to complete this master. After that I want to continue my career here at ASML as a system engineer. Learning, however, is a goal in itself for me, whether it’s connected to my job or not.”

This article is written by Tom Cassauwers, freelancer at Bits&Chips.