The Engineering Design Process
There is no one accepted model of the engineering design process.
Each model varies in complexity from 3 step loops to very complicated interwoven steps that are made to monitor the overall progress towards a completed and ready for production product.
The three step loop contains the elements ideate, implement, test.
More complete systems have the steps: establishment of objectives and criteria, synthesis, analysis, construction, testing and evaluation.
All of these processes are iterative, almost never reaching completion without repeating steps many times.
Common Steps in the process are:
- Research
- Design requirements
- Feasibility
- Conceptualization
- Preliminary design
- Design for manufacturability
- Production planning
The Steps
Research involves casting a wide net and finding out other solutions or finding out if technology might be transferable from another process.
Factors like problems, existing literature, successes using existing solutions, costs, and marketplace needs all have to be evaluated.
Reverse engineering is also considered part of the research step, and may be an effective choice when there are few other sources of information.
Many sources can be utilized including the internet, libraries, available government documents, personal organizations, trade journals, vendor catalogs, and individual experts.
The next step, design requirements, involves establishing design requirements and conducting requirement analysis.
It is sometimes called problem definition, and is a vital step in the design process.
Defining the functions, attributes, and specifications after finding out user needs is the main task of this step.
Some of these requirements may be software or hardware related like maintainability, availability, testability.
Problem definition is often performed at the same time as feasibility analysis.
Feasibility studies narrow the scope of the project to find the best scenario.
Essentially finding out if the project can proceed into the design phase, using two factors the project must be an achievable idea, and within cost constraints.
Engineers with experience and good judgement are necessary for evaluating if these factors can be achieved.
Conceptualization focuses on producing ideas and weighing the pros and cons of implementing those ideas.
Minimizing the chance of error, managing costs, assessing risks, and estimating the potential success of a project are the goals of this step.
Often called ideation or concept generation there are many common techniques such as:
- Trigger word – starting from a word or phrase and moving to associated words and phrases.
- Morphological analysis – each individual design characteristic is listed and solutions focusing on each are presented.
- Synetics – Imagining oneself as the item and asking “What would I do if I were the system?”
- Brainstorming – thinking of different ideas, usually as a group, and adopting these in some form as a solution.
Further Steps
After ideation is a concept evaluation step, looking for the strengths and weaknesses of the possible alternatives.
Preliminary design bridges the gap between conception and detailed design.
It involves defining the product through schematics, diagrams, and layouts to allow for a framework to build the project.
Detailed design, further describes the project through solid modeling, drawings, and specifications.
It can also involve procurement of materials.
Design for manufacturability creates a method for the project to be easily manufactured.
CAD programs have made this step far more efficient, allowing optimizations like reducing volume without changing the performance of the part.
These programs can also calculate stress and displacement using the finite element method.
Production planning calculates tool designs and other factors that allow for mass production of the project.
Determining the sequence of operations, and selection of tools are optimized at this point.
Qualification testing of the project often continues at this point as the finished parts are evaluated in use.
The later steps in the process are often repeated as unplanned and unexpected problems or failures to meet qualifications are found.
These unwanted factors cause resets back to the step that they most effect, if a part is too heavy then it just needs a material change or redesign.
If there is a failure of the project to address the problem it is made for most of the process would need to be started over.
Many teams split and work on steps of the engineering process in parallel to reduce the time spent iterating.
With good communication the teams can be ideating, testing, and building prototypes at the same time.
The overall goal is reached when the project reaches or exceeds specifications and is mass producible.
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