ENGINEERING DESIGN PROCESS

There are many models describing the steps which are followed in a typical process of
engineering design. Figure 1 illustrates the cyclical nature of the design process and the
different stages of activity that an engineer or a team of engineers go through in order
to complete the design process. This simplistic representation can be made much more
elaborate by refining each of the design stages into many sub-processes. It is also
implicit to this model that many iterations may occur among the sub-processes.

goals

cons- objectives
traints Tree
Stage I:
Problem
sub- marketing
designs Identification & reports

brain-
storming
Stage II: Stage V: proto-
typing

Ideation Implemen-
DESIGN tation
concept
tree PROCESS tooling

Stage III: Stage IV:

goals & Detailed
Feasibility refine-
cons- Design & ment
traints
Analysis

rough drawings
analysis refine- tests & & reports
ment analysis

Figure 1: Typical Design Process

STAGE I: PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

Design process typically starts with identifying a problem or a need which has
necessitated the design activity. This step is of tremendous importance since it
establishes the foundation and the direction for all further effort.

Most engineering problems are ambiguous at the onset. They usually reflect an abstract
desire or a vague need expressed by a client (customer, supervisor, market, etc.). It is
the responsibility of the design team to clearly identify the project goals before setting
out to create a design solution. Ill-defined goals are a major contributor to wasted
design effort and failed projects.

As a part of problem identification, the design team must determine the answer to
questions such as the following:

• What does the client want?

• What does the client "really" want?
• What are the real causes of what the client presents as the problem?
• Having thoroughly clarified the client's needs, what are the specific goals that the
design solution must meet in order to completely solve the client's problem?
• What are the constraints (budget, material and manufacturing resources, time,
labor skills, etc.) within which the design solution must be accomplished?

Only after a reasonable sense of clarity about the problem is established should the
design team engage in the actual process of designing a solution. There are several
methods for clarifying design goals and constraints: Objective or Decision Tree, Quality
Function Deployment (QFD), House of Quality, etc.

END RESULT: a clear agreement on what the true design goals and constraints are.

STAGE II: IDEATION

Once the design goals and constraints are clearly specified, the design team can turn
its attention to generating conceptual (preliminary) solutions. Conceptual ideas may be
completely new and innovative, or they may be clever ways of transforming an existing
design to meet the current design challenges.

During the ideation stage, it is important to generate an atmosphere which induces

creativity and free-thinking. There are numerous methods which enhance the ability to
create design ideas: Brainstorming, Checklisting, patent and literature search, etc.
The following points can help improve the ideation stage:

• Almost all design problems can be broken down into a collection of smaller sub-
problems. Conceptual ideas can then be generated for each of the sub-problems
separately.
• While in the process of ideation, one must be careful not to let feasibility
concerns get in the way of creativity. These concerns usually have to do with not
knowing if the idea will work, or not knowing if the design can be built. Feasibility
issues should be addressed in the next stage.

END RESULT: a few conceptual designs which may have the potential to satisfy the
design goals and constraints.

STAGE III: FEASIBILITY

Once a few conceptual designs have been generated, they need to be evaluated
against the goals and constraints of the project. At this point, there may be a need for
re-defining (re-clarifying) the design goals and constraints. Also, rough (first-order)
calculations may be needed to establish feasibility of the design.

END RESULT: one refined conceptual design which has a reasonable chance of
success.

STAGE IV: DETAILED DESIGN & ANALYSIS

Following the selection of a viable conceptual design, the design team must use its
analytical and scientific skills to transform the concept into reality. During this stage, all
the components and sub-systems of the proposed design have to be given specific
sizes, dimensions, power ratings, capacities, etc.

Various analysis tools may be used during this stage. These include: hand calculations,
computer simulations, computer-aided design, and graphic representations. As
computations progress, the need for design refinement may arise several times, and
the team may have to re-visit all of the previous design stages to improve its design.

END RESULT: justification and documentation of the proposed design in such a way
that it can be manufactured or re-traced by another team.
STAGE V: IMPLEMENTATION

Although it could be argued that implementing a design is not a part of the design
process, the culmination of the design process is its implementation. As a matter of
fact, designs which ignore this stage often run into long lead-times and time consuming
revisions because some of the implementation constraints were overlooked.

Upon completion of the detailed design stage, the results must be presented in a
"workable" form. This form depends on the nature of the final product. For example, if a
prototype is to be fabricated, implementation would mean to produce working drawings,
specify manufacturing tooling and processes, and finally fabricate. On the other hand,
the implementation stage may require documentation (perhaps for a patent) and/or
development of a marketing strategy. In most cases, the implementation stage will
require many elements including: working drawings, documentation, tooling,
prototyping, and marketing.

END RESULT: working drawings, documentation, plans for manufacturing and/or

marketing, and functional prototypes.