Hey, this came up a while ago and I cannot for my life find the answer. I feel a bit slow, but when I search for it I get a description but not the term.
There is an engineering method that prevents things from being plugged in wrong. One example is the old 3 1/2 floppy disk, it had a cutout so the disk wouldn't seat any way except the right way. They used to use a term for that kind of engineering, it was not quite jargon but more "jargon slang". Does anyone know what that term was?
Holy crap I just found it. and I know why I couldn't find it before now, too.
it's poka-yoke, and it was used by japanese engineers. I learned it a long time ago when I studied troubleshooting and lean processes, some of the stuff was originated in japanese manufacturing, and that term came up. I was looking in american engineering slang.
All I could find is write protect notch. [web.nmsu.edu] I used dogpile.com search engine that searches all the search engines.