>> In this lecture, we're going to talk
about the engineering design process, a process that's very,
very important for engineers.
The design process is a process of conceiving
and inventing ideas mentally and communicating these ideas
to others in a form that is easily understood.
So in design, most of the time there is a problem
or requirement that you're trying to solve or achieve
and the design involves creating a solution to this problem
in order to satisfy the requirements.
And there're two primary purposes for the design process.
The first one is personal expression and product
or process development.
Aesthetic design, an aspect of design is concerned
with the look and the feel of the product,
so how it looks and how it feels.
On the other hand, the functional design is concerned
with the aspect of the function of the product or process.
That means you want to make sure
that the product possesses a form that's related
to the purpose or the function of that product.
Product design is the process used to create new products,
for instance, automobiles, cell phones, new appliances.
It's a very complex activity that includes many aspects
and not just the actual creation of the solution to the problem
or the product itself, but also things like marketing,
production, sales, service, function, and profit analysis,
as well as satisfying the needs of the customer,
making sure that it's safe for the customer and safe
for the environment and also profitability to the company.
System design, on the other hand,
is not to create a physical product,
but it creates a new system or process.
A system is an orderly arrangement of parts or steps
that are combined in order to serve one general goal.
Going through the engineering design process,
it can be defined as a problem-solving process
that uses knowledge, resources, and existing products in order
to create new goods or improve new processes
or improve goods or improve processes.
Engineering design has both aesthetic
and functional elements and can be broken
down into broad categories of designing a product,
called product design, or designing a system.
Engineering design is one of the processes normally associated
with an entire engineering business or enterprise,
starting from the receipt of the order or product ideas,
to maintenance of the product, and all stages in between.
An engineering design involves both a process and a product.
A process is a series of continuous actions ending
in a particular result.
And a product is a physical thing or anything
that is produced as a result of some process.
Traditionally, the engineering design process can be broken
down into six sequential steps.
You can look at a traditional engineering design
as a linear approach, meaning you go to step one
and then step two, step three.
But the process is actually iterated.
So as the design process moves through each step
in a sequential manner, any problems are encountered,
you may return to previous step or go back to previous steps
and repeat the process in order to improve your design.
And the steps involved are first, problem identification
and then generation of preliminary ideas,
followed by refinement of those ideas and analysis
of those ideas in order to make a decision
to which particular design to pursue further and implement.
Implementation is the last step.
With the step two, problem identification, you would need
to briefly state the problem, as well as the requirements
and limitations of the problem, any needed information in order
to solve the problem, considerations of market.
You need to include useful information as graphs, data,
sketches, and schematics that improve the communication
of findings and also aid in the making a decision.
Second step in engineering design process is a generation
of preliminary ideas.
And the idea is to accumulate as many ideas
for solving the problem
or satisfying the requirements as possible.
And this can be done by brainstorming sessions,
where in your team, each person would contribute to any ideas
that they have that might lead to the solution of the problem.
And during the brainstorming session,
this is really not the time
to start thinking whether the generated preliminary ideas
would really ultimately solve the problem.
So you're not really looking at the viability
or effectiveness of each design idea.
You just list as many as possible.
So the idea under brainstorming under preliminary ideas is
to generate a long list.
The more preliminary ideas you have
to solve the problem, the better.
The next step is refinement.
And under this stage, you select several
of the better preliminary ideas and you refine them.
And during this stage, you might start generating scale drawings
that allow useful computations and measurements in order
for you to compare the different designs.
So a refinement, you're going to be looking at several
of the preliminary ideas, the better ones, in order to be able
to compare them in the next stage, which is analysis.
During the analysis stage, you evaluate
and compare the best designs with respect to some set
of criteria, including cost, for instance, strength, function,
market appeal, and other important properties.
During analysis, this is when you use your knowledge of math,
physics, and engineering in order
to determine the suitability of the design
so that you can compare the advantages and disadvantages
of the different design options so you can have a good basis
for making a decision, which is the next step.
And during the decision stage, actually you're going
to select the best design based on the analysis that you did.
You will rank the alternative designs based on some criteria,
determined with respect to the relative importance
of the decision criteria, such as things like function,
human factors, market analysis, strength, production, cost,
profitability, appearance, and other factors
that you think might be important
in determining the best design.
The decision is usually displayed
in what's called a decision table that lists down each
of the design options, the main design options,
and lists down all the criteria and the points
that each design option gets from each criteria in order
to determine the final overall score
so can rank your design options.
After you've made a decision, obviously,
the next step is implementing the design that came
out to be the best with respect to your criteria.
And during the implementation part,
you will be creating working drawings, detailed drawings
that include not only isometric but multi-views with dimensions,
as well as assembly drawing as stated in the previous lab
on working drawings and assemblies.
You will also include specification
and detailed instructions on the fabrication, manufacture,
packaging, et cetera of the product.
Those are the traditional steps
that are taking sequentially all the done iteratively
and repeatedly as needed.
Nowadays, instead of doing the traditional sequential
engineering design process steps,
we have something called a concurrent engineering design,
which it's called concurrent
because there's three main stages, ideation, refinement,
and implementation, that actually happened sort
of concurrently and overlapping.
So the engineering design process consists
of these overlapping areas called ideation,
refinement, and implementation.
During this time, these different stages,
you use the same CAD database.
So the 3-D model is right in the center of this process.
So under ideation, you include problem identification,
generation of preliminary ideas, as well as preliminary design,
sort of parallel to the first few steps
of the traditional engineering design.
And then, during the refinement stage, you use modeling,
design analysis, design visualization, and simulations,
sort of parallel to the middle stages
of the traditional engineering design process.
And then finally, implementation,
that includes not just creating the product itself
but also servicing whatever it is
that you have created once your customers by them: financing,
marketing, producing, planning,
and documentation of this product.
So very similar to the traditional sequential steps,
but the three stages are overlapping.
So you can go from one to the other depending on your progress
in order to make needed adjustments easier.
So under the ideation stage, it's a structured approach
to thinking for the purpose of solving a problem.
So this is where you first initially identify the problem,
briefly like we did, and then create preliminary ideas
and preliminary design
that would hopefully solve the problem.
In the problem identification stage, the parameters
of the design are set before attempting
to find a solution to the design.
So problem identification includes the following
for an element: problem statement summarizing the
problem to be solved, research that's needed
for relevant information that will be useful
to the design team, what's already existing there,
what are the problems that those existing designs have
and how we can improve them, data gathering so you can look
at feasibility studies whether we really a need
for this particular design or improvement
that you're looking at.
You will look at market needs, benchmarking with a competition,
what's already out there and how you can improve them.
Rough measurements, such as weight and size
of those existing products.
Looking at the objectives of the things
to be accomplished by the team.
Also limitations such as design specifications
and size, weight and so on.
Materials, as well as limitations with respect
to safety regulations,
environmental regulations, and those things.
And also creating a schedule to organize the activities
of the design team into a sequence to make sure
that you have a timeline and you will do your best in order
to adjust to that timeline.
In generating preliminary ideas,
you will still use the brainstorming process.
You identify, is the key, as many solutions,
possible solutions to the problem.
The more ideas you have initially,
the better because it will be easy to cross out,
from that list of possible solutions,
those that will not work.
But this is the time that you have to be
as creative as possible.
This is the most creative part of the design process.
In the ideation phase, you need to make rough sketches and notes
and conceptual computer models in order
to describe the ideas during the brainstorming process
so you don't forget them.
Models or drawings are very useful in order
to communicate new ideas through the use
of rough sketches and computer models.
So you want to make sure that you capture all of the ideas
that are generated during the brainstorming process
by typing them, making sketches, computer models and so on.
Inventive or creative ideas can come from a number of sources,
so from each member of the group as well as research,
looking for surveys, looking at competition reviews,
library reference materials, vendor catalogs,
looking at going to stores and seeing what's already available
and how they can be improved.
A design notebook should be used to record all ideas.
What you don't want to happen is have some really good ideas
and you completely forget them
because you didn't capture them completely during your
brainstorming session.
A well-documented notebook is critical for recording ideas
for later synthesis and to provide legal groundwork
for patents and other proof of intellectual ownership.
It's very important.
If you come up with something that's original,
you need to make sure that you document.
Under refinement, it's a repetitive, iterative,
or cyclical process that is used to test preliminary designs
and make changes if necessary.
The refinement stage normally begins with rough sketches
and computer models to create dimensionally accurate drawings
and models.
The refinement stage is heavily dependent on graphics in order
to document, visualize, analyze,
and communicate the design ideas.
And these refinement drawings are used
to analyze the preliminary design
so that you can compare them later on.
And one way of analyzing this design is by modeling,
where you represent abstract ideas, words,
and forms through some use of simplified texts
and images and other tools.
A descriptive model presents abstract ideas or processes
in the recognizable form.
A predictive model is one that can be used
to predict the behavior/performance
of those designs.
A mathematical model uses mathematical equations in order
to represent the behavior of the different components
of a system or design.
A scale model is a physical model that's created,
usually not to an actual scale, maybe a smaller scale,
in order to analyze the viability of a design.
Rapid prototyping is very important.
It's used to describe several related processes that allow you
to create real models directly from 3-D CAD database.
This rapid prototyping is very important nowadays.
Additive manufacturing or use
of 3-D printers can accomplish this task of creating really,
really quickly real models from 3-D CAD drawings.
Under refinement is design analysis,
which involves the evaluation of each of the proposed designs,
based on the criteria established
in the ideation phase based on the requirements
and statement of the problem.
It is the second major or stage of the refinement process.
Typical, there's different types of analyses that you might need
to do: property analysis,
looking at the physical properties
of the different designs, functional analysis
to determine whether the design is going
to do what it's intended to do as its function,
human factors analysis looking at what
if the product serves the physical, emotional, quality,
mental, and safety needs of the consumer,
which presumably are humans.
Aesthetic analysis makes sure
that it's pleasing and appealing.
Market analysis in order to make sure
that it would meet the needs of the potential customers.
And this can be done by looking at surveys and focus groups
to determine the market needs.
And financial analysis is to make sure that's it's going
to be profitable for the company.
The last stage in this concurrent engineering design
process is the implementation.
It is the process used to change the final design idea.
So whatever you selected as your best design,
you turn that into a product if it's product design or a process
or a system or a structure.
The planning process determines the most effective method
of moving a product to the production cycle.
Production is a process used to transform raw materials
that are needed in order to create your finished product
or process or structures, using labor, equipment,
capital, and facilities.
Important part of implementation is marketing,
anticipating customer needs and directing the flow of goods
from the producer to the consumer.
Another important aspect is finance,
making sure that the product is feasible
and what the capital requirements are and the return
of investment to make sure that it's profitable
within a reasonable period of time.
Management: logical organization of people, materials, energy,
equipment in order to produce the product.
Service, including insulation, training on how
to use a product's maintenance and repair if needed.
And very important throughout this process is documentation.
Here, you formally record
and communicate the final design solution.
For the design process,
we're going to apply this to our final project.
As an example web access, you have this homework 17,
an example of the engineering design process.
It's called seat for hunting from a tree.
So in this example, you are taken
through the different steps
in the traditional engineering design process.
So here's problem identification.
That involves naming the project,
making a brief statement of the project, the requirements,
the needed information, all of these things,
market considerations, surveys, retailer surveys,
for instance, annual expenditures.
So this example here, I want you to go through the example in order
to look at the different steps involved in the design process.
The first part of course is
project identification, and then second one is preliminary ideas.
These preliminary ideas are generated using
brainstorming sessions.
And if you notice here, during the generation
of preliminary ideas, you have a description
of the ideas, as well as sketches.
And take note, look at the list of ideas that are given.
I took this from an old textbook.
We have a long list of ideas.
Some of them may not be feasible later on, as we will find out.
But the idea is to make a long list
of possible design ideas to solve the problem.
And then, you select the best ideas out of the long list.
So this is our several short lists of better ideas.
And from these better ideas, we do refinement.
So you go into a little more detail
of each of the design ideas.
So this is refinement.
You have better sketches.
You now start indicating dimensions, for instance this,
and then followed by analysis.
So in analysis, the idea is to look at each of the best,
maybe several best, ideas with respect to criteria
that are important in determining
which of the designs is the best.
For instance, you can analyze them in terms of function,
human engineering, market and consumer acceptance,
physical description, strength.
So these are just some suggested general criteria for analysis.
Production procedure, of course, you want to make sure
that the product's not going to be very difficult to produce.
And then economic analysis,
making sure that it's profitable.
Because those analysis criteria, function, human engineering,
and so on and so forth will be used in determining
or in making decisions in the decision stage.
So what you do is you look at your top three or four designs
and then look at your analysis factors,
what you think would be important in deciding which one
of the designs is the best.
So here are the factors.
And then, within your group, you will assign relative importance
of each of these factors.
For instance, function is the highest
with the maximum points of three.
Of course, you want to make sure
that the design will do what it's supposed
to or designed to do.
And then among the other factors,
you will also assign maximum number of points depending
on the relative importance.
So this total here of 10 is arbitrary.
It could be 20.
It could be 100.
As long as you have number one, a list of factors
that are important and number two, decision on which
and how these different factors are important relative
to each other, their relative importance.
And then, you're going to look at each design, design one,
designed to, design three, as described here,
and assign points based on the maximum points.
And then you're going to add all the total points.
And based on this, hopefully, the best design will come
out with the highest score.
And from that, you're going to make a conclusion that,
in this case, design three is the best.
And from that, you're going to go through the implementation,
which would require you to create detailed drawings,
working drawings, and specifications
for how the product is going to be produced,
including fabrication, packaging, storage,
shipping of the product.
So this is an example
of the traditional engineering design process applied
to this problem of designing a hunting seat from a tree.
So the problem is many hunters sit on tree limbs while hunting.
This is unsafe and uncomfortable.
The tree provides a desirable vantage point
from which to hunt.
A seat is needed to take advantage of the height
and concealment of trees.
So we're trying to come up with the best design
for a hunting seat.
So review, study this example.
And in order to do that as part of homework number 17,
I want you to get together with your teammates.
So each-- So for the final project, you're going to have--
So you will be in groups of two or three members.
You're going to discuss the hunting seat example
with your group mates.
And there are certain things I want you to go over,
discuss with your group mates and set up this prompt here
on this Word document.
Complete this.
And then, you're going to upload this Word document,
the completed Word document to web access
as your homework number 17.
Although this is going to be discussed as a group,
each individual group member needs
to upload their completed comment sheet.
So hopefully that will give you an idea on how to go about going
through the design process
when you're given your final design project.