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ME 4054 DESIGN PROJECTS

OPENING LECTURE -- Includes notes on "Design Process"

ver: sept-99

(c) 1999 by W. Durfee and T. Chase

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Put on board: Title, name, today’s agenda

(handout: Syllabus, HW#1, Schedule, Assignments list, "Successful Projects", Project descriptions, project signup form, shop video form)

(bring: handout, slides of past design show (optional…need a projector), final report examples, prototype examples, lab notebook example, Ulrich & Eppinger text, ….streetlamp w/ foils)

(TA brings: shop videos, TV monitor and VCR)

Course intro/logistics

Project descriptions

Picking a project

"Design Process"

Shop training videos

Welcome!

This will be the best course you take here. It will be the course which is closest to the "real world".

You will work hard, but learn a lot.....get ready!

What do you expect to learn/get-out-of this course?

(2 minutes to jot down 3 expectations you have)

OK, what are your ideas? (write on board)

1. Course intro and logistics

2. Design Process

3. Shop safety videos

4. Submit project preference form

5. You have a homework assignment due before next class

(1:25 - 4:30 pm)

Before you leave the room, hand in project assignment sheet!

Objective: Creative, successful experience

Lectures (process overview), Projects (the experience)

Lecture attendence: will make relevant to projects

Projects:

• Go through the process
• Work in teams of 4-8
• Wide range of projects available, you select in order of preference
• Meet as a team, with project advisor next class

A Good Project is:

Open ended (no single answer)

Taxes your creativity

Taxes your analysis skills (fluid, statics....also, not just

what you learned yesterday)

Requires teamwork (whole > sum of parts)

Hones presentation skills(formal, informal)

A solution to a need (customer driven)

Most info in the syllabus and on web

Project assignments posted on the web before next class.

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DESIGN PROCESS

Lecture Notes

ver: sept-99

(c) 1999 by W. Durfee and T. Chase

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1. "Design is our biggest weapon!", Mark Fuller, WET Designs

(What does WET Designs do?)

Water sculptures based on advanced fluid mechanics. Laminar flow jets, water signs, water bursts, walk-under fountains, 57,000 gold plated bristles in Saudia Arabia airport sculpture

2. "We want the paper car", Howard Pagem, Chrysler Corp, LH platform (Chrysler Concorde, Eagle Vision, Dodge Intrepid)

With cross-functional teams, customer driven and faster-better-cheaper the results, goals are: (before/now/goal) time: 4.5 yrs / 3.25 yrs / 2 yrs; people: 1,400 / 850 / 400.

3. Mars probe (see news clipping)

- Design means succeeding with open-ended, ill-defined problems. **slide**

"We need a lo-cost, reusable manned, orbiting flight system"

• No single "correct" solution
• Fuzzy constraints
• Objectives may change as information is gained
• Must make decisions using incomplete information
• Multidisciplinary
• Needs a team

- Design is multi-disciplinary, particularly mechanical/electronic **slide**

Vending machines.

Aircraft

Automobiles

Laptops

CD players

Biological sensors

Implantable medical devices

- Design defines an engineer! **slide**

Detail design and engineering analysis is only a small part of the picture **slide**

• Design is different from what you have spent most of your time learning in the engineering curriculum (although it shouldn’t be).

• Traditional analysis courses teach focused, isolated analytical skills (fluids, solids, heat transfer, control systems)

• You use these in design (student designers often have a problem deciding which analysis skills to use but in context, and in addition to understanding the customer, knowing how to make selections, communicating your ideas,…

• If you want to be a product design leader, you MUST realize this.

• There is NO POINT in doing an excellent job of detailed technical design if the product gets to market too late or if the customer doesn't want it.

• There are many non-technical factors that go into a good product.
• Cost
• User interface
• Marketing

• Why is it that engineers are not more involved in the decision making process of a company? Is it because they don't see the whole picture?

WHY YOU NEED A PROCESS **slide**

- But, be careful of being too strict, too regulated. Good design comes from flexibility, from not being afraid to chuck it all and go back.

DESIGN TEAM **slide**

• Good team includes marketing, engineering, manufacturing, sales…

• All follow the product process from start to finish

• No "over the wall"

BASIC DESIGN PROCESS **npd slide**

Fundamental Steps

Opportunity Identification

Customer Need

Product Definition

Concept Design (generation and selection)

Detail Design

Manufacture

Sales

Real design process **slide**

Some things to think about

• Must parallel process and iterate

• Manufacture/Sales is dependent on "1 of", "10 of"
• or "1 million of" needs

• Details of process depends on company standards and designer
• personality

• Process is independent of particular engineering domain.

• Applies equally well to ME, EE, Architecture, Scenic Design,...

• Particular engineering skills depend on particular
• problem domain

• Apply process to whole product and to subsystems

• Design Management is needed to organize the process (see Design Management lecture)

• Teamwork is required for success (see Team Dynamics lecture)

• Communication and documentation is needed to convey the ideas and the work (see Presentation Workshop and Final Report notes)

Now let's look at the steps one at a time.

***see slides, npd process 1-6***

COMMON DESIGN PROCESS ERRORS **slide**

• Did not understand the customer
• Selected concept before specifying selection criteria
• Narrow focus on detail design
• Poor documentation
• Poor communication
• Poor management
• Poor teamwork

FINAL THOUGHTS **slide**

• Adjust to fit your particular situation
• But, you MUST have some process

• In this course, we care more about good PROCESS than final PRODUCT.

APPENDIX

ADDITIONAL DETAIL ON PROCESS STEPS

CUSTOMER NEED

- The number one mistake of the novice designer is creating a product that nobody wants.

It may be innovative, it may be exciting, but if you

can't sell it, forget it.

Think about the Space Station

Think about the fax machine

- ALL products (and services for that matter) have a customer. Most have several.

NSP project: NSP, State of MN, Recycling company,

NSP field workers

- Gathering customer needs

VERY important

Don't leave to the marketing types

Cannot define the product without knowing customer needs.

- See Customer-Based Design lecture for more

Scan through project list. Think about which ones have identified an opportunity, have a defined customer and are ones you would like to invest in.

On front of index card, name in upper left (print), then list "investment-grade" projects.

Discuss with neighbor (after finding out name and b-day)

Pick on those wearing green (or other means) to talk

MISSION STATEMENT

- At this point, very useful for team to write a 1-sentence mission statement that completely describes the team's objective.

Example: "Design an innovative, hand-held precision trimmer for homeowner yard work."

PRODUCT DEFINITION

- A VERY important step in the process. It's the "vision"

- Cannot design without a clear statement of what the product is and what it should do.

- Output is the "Product Design Specification", a detailed WRITTEN document which completely defines the product requirements

A living document -- DON'T be afraid to change

Detail is added as the product evolves

Driven by customer needs

It shows what you are trying to achieve, NOT what

you end up with

- Definition should be approved by management/customer/design-team before proceeding.

- Divide into particular elements (list appears below)

- Elements which might appear in a product spec (arbitrary order)

• Engineering performance (speed, force, torque, power,...)
• Product cost (to consumer, to company)
• Time-to-Market
• Product environment (Temperature, pressure, humidity,
• dust, dirt, vibration, shock, 0-g, fluid corrosion,...)
• (Product environment includes during manufacture,
• packaging, shipping, warehouse storage, display, use, consumer storage
• Product operator/users
• Storage shelf life
• Service life
• Product lifetime
• Installation procedure
• Maintenance
• Size
• Weight
• Materials
• User Interface
• Overall "look"
• Shipping and storage
• Disposal and reuse
• Manufacturing facility
• Prototyping facility
• Regulatory environment (fed/state/local)
• Product liability
• International market
• Intended market
• Packaging
• Reliability
• Patent infringement
• Test protocol
• Safety
• Documentation
• Distribution channels (company --> enduser)
• Relation to company mission
• Others which relate to particular product

- For each element, try to give a numeric spec.

Estimate if unknown

Or, provide range or limits

- Important to be comprehensive. List everything even if you choose to ignore it later.

In a design course, you will have to ignore many of

the requirements because of time constraints.

- Specs will be overlapping and conflicting. Don't worry so much at this stage, they will sort themselves out as the design evolves.

- Remember that these spec's ARE NOT SET IN STONE!!!!!

- As an engineer you should always be questioning the specs!

"That's what marketing told us" is an UNACCEPTABLE answer.

- It is generally better to get a product out the door that slips on some of the specs than to wait for technology advances which will enable meeting all of the specs.

- Try to define the technology that drives product (power/weight, materials, user-interface?)

Format: Opening paragraph or two of description, then a table with columns: rqmt (include units if appropriate), target (a number or "N/A" or some explanatory text), comments (include source of rqm't, that is where it came from and why).

INFORMATION GATHERING

- Creating the spec requires considerable INFORMATION GATHERING

- Sources for information

Customers

Competing products (reverse engineering)

Analogous products

Patents (same and analogous fields)

Trade magazines

Published standards (ASME, Mil-Spec,....)

Engineering handbooks

Engineering textbooks

Experience

Customers, customers, customers

- Developing product requirements based on "gut feel" is fraught with danger, particularly for experienced engineers.

CONCEPT DESIGN (GENERATION and SELECTION)

- The fun part

- Here is where you get to be creative

- Goal: Find concept which meets the product specification

Thus, cannot start without at least a partial product spec

- See Concept Generation and Selection lecture for details

CONCEPT GENERATION

- Get as many ideas as you can. Two is unacceptable, 10 is marginal, more is better.

- Be creative and wild at start, don't worry if concepts meet all the specs.

- Use a mix of individual and group activities

- Don't be intimidated or influenced by prior work on the problem

Better not to know about prior work

You are bringing fresh ideas to the process

Prior work influence can stifle creativity

- DO NOT make ANY selections until you have lots of concepts

CONCEPT SELECTION

- Use a structured selection process to find the best concepts.

- You are not "optimizing" here, many of the choices are subjective.

- Several matrix selection processes are available

- Use combinations to make weak concepts strong, strong concepts stronger

- Iterate with concept generation

- Some (or a lot of) analysis may be required to aid selection

- Experimentation and/or concept prototype may be required to aid selection

- Don't worry about the trivial issues, look for the show stoppers.

- DOCUMENT your selection process.

- You MUST be able to justify your choices.

Getting down to a single concept requires many meetings and teamwork. From here down (detail design, etc.), can work effectively in subgroups or individually.

DETAIL DESIGN

- This is where you turn the concept into the product.

- Requires extensive engineering analysis

- Make sure concept is strong before getting too far down the line.

Costly (time/resources) to go back a step

- Design for X (DFX) must be incorporated from the start, X=

Reliability

Assembly

Manufacture

Safety

Reuse

...and so on

- Must have manufacturing on the design team

- Particulars will depend on particulars of product.

- Must be well managed

MANUFACTURE/SALES

- Separate courses in themselves.

- Engineers MUST be involved in manufacturing, should be involved in sales and customer service (product feedback)

- Will not pay much attention to these in this course (NOT because they are not important, but rather because of time constraints).

ASSESSMENT

- When done, have to define success. Can be hard.

Describe the Sno-Gopher project. Read the mission statement from final report.

Was this project a success?

On back of card, note criteria for success and if met.

Discuss with neighbor, then whole class

Note: Sno-Gopher did: market research, analysis, prototype building