Error budgets for optomechanical modeling

The author has found that linear approximations in heat transfer, elasticity and optics are powerful tools that are adequate for solving the great majority of optomechanical engineering design problems. In his experience the analytical errors are minimized by assuming linearity in the equations and unifying the solution into a single analytical code. He suggest that organizations planning optomechanical analyses perform top-down error budgets of the processes involved in order to design the most cost-effective analysis for the project. An ISO standard is recommended as a guide to the error budgeting process.