INTRODUCTION TO
ENGINEERING DESIGN
Definition
Engineering Design is the process of devising a
system, component, or process to meet desired
needs.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge,
for knowledge is finite whereas imagination is
infinite” ~ Albert Einstein
Design Levels
Adaptive design
adaptation of existing designs.
Development design
The designer starts from an existing design, but the
final outcome may differ markedly from the initial
product
New design
generating a new concept
involves mastering all the previous skills in addition to
creativity and imagination, insight, and foresight.
Importance of Design
Design does not start with an engineering drawing
made on a computer package such as AutoCAD™.
Design is most important steps in the development
of a product
No matter how good the manufacturing, production,
sales, etc. are, if a product is poorly designed, the end
product still will be a bad idea and will ultimately fail,
as no one likes to purchase a bad idea.
Case Studies of Poor Design
Reasons for Engineering Design Failures – Walton
List
Incorrect or overextended assumptions
Poor understanding of the problem to be solved
Incorrect design specifications
Faulty manufacturing and assembly
Error in design calculations
Incomplete experimentation and inadequate data
collection
Errors in drawings
Faulty reasoning from good assumptions
Other types of Design Failure
However, even if a design is a technical success and
no faults occur, many designs still fail to achieve
their desired goals, and many achieve them but are
not adopted by the users. So why do many people
fail at design?
Designers not only have to have the creative and
technical skills to develop an idea to become a
reality, but they also need to predict the future in
some ways.
Systematic Design
It was introduced to help guide the design process
Requirements
Product concept
Solution concept
Embodiment design
Detailed design
Most Important Step – Needs and Customer
Identification
The most important step of the design process is
identifying the needs of the customer or the
‘Requirements’ stage.
However, before this is done, it is important to
establish who the customers are.
A vital concept to grasp here is that customers are
not only the end users. Customers of a product are
everyone who will deal with the product at some
stage during its lifetime.
Example – Customers of an Airplane
• Passengers
• Crew
• Pilot
• Airport
• Engineers and service crew
• Fueling companies
• Airlines
• Manufacturing and production departments
• Baggage handlers
• Cleaning and catering companies
• Sales and marketing
• Accounts and finance departments
• Military/Courier/Cargo/etc
• Authorities and official bodies
• Companies involved with the items that will be outsourced
A Brief Overview of the Design Process
Need Identification and Problem Definition
Interviewing with customers
An active team should constantly meet current and potential customers to identify
the strength and weakness of a product so as to examine if there is any need to
upgrade.
Focus group
A focus group refers to a small sub-set of existing customers or potential
customers. A discussion is usually facilitated in many such groups separately to
identify more closely the merits and demerits of the product.
Customer survey
A written questionnaire is possibly the best way to know the pubic opinions for
redesigning an existing product or developing a new product.
Customer complaints
Complaints from customers provide a significant premise to identify the requisite
improvement for an existing product.
A Brief Overview of the Design Process
Conceptual Design
Identification of customer needs:
Problem definition:
Gathering Information:
Conceptualization:
Concept selection
Embodiment Design
Product architecture: It is concerned with dividing the
overall design system into small subsystems and modules
Configuration design: In this process we determine what all
features are required in the various parts / components and
how these features are to be arranged in space relative to
each other.
Parametric design: It starts with information from the
configuration design process and aims to establish the exact
dimensions and tolerances of the product. Also, final
decisions on the material and manufacturing processes are
done if it has not been fixed in the previous process.
