Why is there a sign off process? It takes forever, and when the people do get the docs, they rarely have any useful comments for me!
Actually, there is a very good reason for signoff. It is misapplied sometimes, but it is implemented for a very good reason. This article discusses why it evolved, and when it is useful (and by inference, when it is not).
Engineering documentation can be very complex, and multidisciplinary. At the least, it has to be able to connect to what your design goal is, and be of sufficient detail to allow its execution. As a designer, theoretically, your work affects every one in the company.
Your company is responsible for the work you do. Although you may be very smart, hard working and really the best person to know about what you are doing, you most likely are not solely responsible for every aspect of your design meeting all project priorities and objectives - unless you own the company, and maybe not even then. Your corporation is responsible for making sure that the work you are doing is appropriate and effective.
Lets say you work at a small company. Your expert/genius boss goes over your design in detail to make sure that everything meets the project priories and objectives. Your boss would be checking to see if the recurring cost is OK, all the requirements are addressed, all the materials are as expected and are available, technical risk is where it should be, it can be built, etc. Basically, your boss would have to be able to address all aspects of your design for suitability, and would probably comment on every area.
It should be clear from this example that this approach is not scalable. At some point, the company president (or your boss in a larger company) simply cannot review every document that crosses his desk in sufficient detail. If they try, they will end up spending all of their time reviewing documents, and the company cannot grow larger due to this choke point. In practice, this is typically about a $30M/year engineering company, for really active engineering managers. Above this level, something else has to happen, or the company will grind to a halt.
What usually happens is that authority for various functions - recurring cost, reliability, safety, electrical design, packaging, manufacturing, etc - is delegated to individuals who review the submission for just their specialty. They are responsible to understand the object of the project, and review your submission's suitability from that perspective.
The company president, or in larger companies, the program manager, only has to make sure that the individuals that have signature authority, approve the design. The development and review of the engineering documentation can then proceed in parallel, as long as everyone knows what they are responsible for. In this way, the design process becomes scalable, and no longer has a single choke point (although you may feel it has been replaced by many choke points, instead of just one!).
Signature authority allows experts to handle detailed reviews that most managers would not have the time, or even the expertise to execute.
In fact, if you are performing a design that is unique for your company, you may encounter in a consultant who is called in for this review (for instance, EMI or safety compliance, or an independent code review).
These people review the design from their perspective, allowing the managers to depend on their expertise to keep the company out of trouble (not that you would do anything wrong!). These people can be jerks, or they can be very helpful. One thing they are allowed to be, is legitimate experts. By reviewing all applications for certain traits, they quickly become very good at knowing what works and what doesn't, and what the company is looking for. And the program manager and system engineers can direct them to make sure that all approaches consistently address what is important to the project - reliability, weight, ease of use, etc, and de-emphasize aspects that are not of interest.
This review authority can also report independently to corporate management - thus providing a check on you boss, and your bosses boss, to make sure they are following the corporate direction also. For instance, Quality systems are typically implemented as independent and reporting directly to corporate.
So the sign off system is a way to convert the review process from a serial process, dependent on one individual, to a parallel process, which can be scaled up almost without limit.
It is a common problem for reviewers to comment outside of their area of responsibility. When several people spill over their responsibilities/ knowledge base, you end up with something much worse than one bottleneck. You may end up being a battlefield for individuals to fight their turf wars.
Learning to recognize this is a very important step in coping with a sign off process. Gently ask if the person is giving direction on the subject, or is simply offering advice.
Drawings may get held up due to a single individual. This sucks, but the sign off process actually provides a solution to this. If one signatory is holding up several projects, this will signal management that you, or your approach is not the issue. If it was just you, and one other person, it could be swatted aside as a "personality conflict". Since this method provides visibility across many projects, hard cases are eventually fixed.
On the other hand, if you are the only one that has drawings being held up due to lack of approvals....hmmmm....
Some of these signatories are quite helpful, and can keep you out of trouble in many ways. Rather than view them as roadblocks, integrate them into your design philosophy. They will appreciate it, and can be very powerful allies, since they can reach out in directions you may not be able to, or even realize existed.
Once you realize what these sign-offs are for, you can generally incorporate their (frequently modest) requirements into your design. Once you get used to having a group of stakeholders, each with a specific ax to grind, you can target your discussions and approaches, and hopefully utilize their expertise as an amplifier for your design approaches.
Or just hit them with the closest heavy thing.