Developing an observatory-wide engineering process

The W. M. Keck Observatory is in the process of formalizing its engineering process across the observatory. Over the years we have developed separate systems in separate departments; we are now creating a unified workflow and documentation system. We'll discuss the context, and propose a process for implementation. We'll describe resources, functions, and tools required for effective development and maintenance of any engineering process. The astronomy community is different from a typical manufacturing environment, and implications for off-the-shelf solutions as well as custom developments will be presented in the context of being an appropriate solution to our type of organization. Specific focus will be placed on the role of documentation as part of this process. We'll discuss different types of documentation and implications for long-term maintenance. We'll describe collaboration tools for both internal and external development and maintenance. We'll discuss paper documentation and current parametric CAD models, and how to maintain those for the life of the observatory. We'll present tools for fast search and retrieval of this information. Finally we'll present lessons learned that may be applied to any such a process.