1-Design-and-Innovation-Fundamentals-Notes PDF

Preview

Summary

Design and Innovation Fundamentals NotesIntroduction to Engineering DesignEngineering Design - Address the Needs: good designs begin with an understanding of the needs. The designs should balance often conflicting societal, economic and humanity needs. - Innovative Solutions: good designs arise from...

Description

Design and Innovation Fundamentals Notes Introduction to Engineering Design Engineering Design - Address the Needs: good designs begin with an understanding of the needs. The designs should balance often conflicting societal, economic and humanity needs. - Innovative Solutions: good designs arise from creative responses to the needs. Solutions arise from generating creative new ideas and converting them into novel, useful and viable commercial products, services and business practices. - Effective delivery: good designs include effective delivery of system, product or project that meets the needs. - The process of engineering: o Converts an expressed need into a product or system which:  Meets the needs in the most cost effective manner throughout its operating lifetime. Roles of Engineers - Conceive, design, implement and operate complex value-added engineering products, processes and systems in modern team based environments. Design Stakeholders - Most design projects have at least three stakeholders: o Customer needs the product. o Engineer designs the product. o Manufacturer builds the product. Failures - Not all engineering creations are successful. - Common reasons for failure include: o Incorrect or overextended assumptions. o Poor understanding of the problem to be solved. o Incorrect design specifications. o Faulty manufacturing. o Error in design calculations. Design Engineer’s Role - Works with customer to define problem. - Translates solution into design specification. - Works on customers behalf to ensure: o Solution matches customer needs. o Delivery to specification, on time, on budget. o Risks to project are controlled. o Ensure technical integrity and compliance to standards and regularions Problem Definition - Statement of problem is typically not precise. - E.g. does inexpensive mean to manufacture or to maintain or both? - What are the relevant safety standards? - What is the operational environment?

Steps in the Design Process Lifecycle of a Product - Product life cycle: describes how a product goes from conception to retirement. - Each phase of a product life cycle is generally characterized by a set of: o Activities. o Milestones. o Artifacts. o Reviews. - A product lives in the market and goes through stages of launch, growth, maturity, decline and evolution. o Market/need/problem. o Product planning and task setting o Design and development o Production/assembly and initial testing. o Marketing/consulting/sales. o Use/consumption/maintenance. o Recycling. o Disposal. - A simplified methodology: o Customer needing a solution to a problem. o Requirements analysis  Requirements specification o System Design  System specification o Detailed block design and test  Functioning modules. o System integration and test. o Properly functioning system. - These steps allow engineers to go back and forth. From testing back to designing if something is wrong, from design back to looking at the analysis etc. Teamwork Skills Group Work - Group work promotes development of skills essential for a successful engineering career. o Peer learning. o Develop collaboration skills. o Interpersonal skills. o Conflict resolution o Ability to both give and receive feedback. o Allows for broader scope of work to be experienced then if students worked alone. - For a team to be successful, the following should be established: o Team charter – basic rules e.g. meetings, performance expectations, decision-making, and resolving disputes. o Meet and communicate regularly – should have at least 3 meetings per project, take minutes of the meeting listing things such as objectives, location, duration and list of action items. o Know team member’s individual skills and preferences. o Plan – use a contract of what you want to achieve.  Deliverables, milestones and deadlines.  Work required and who does what.  Organizing meetings and team coordination.  Review, edit and compile the reports.

-

All team members need to have effective communication lines and be able to speak freely and listen attentively to what others have to say. Decision-making is done by the team, not for the team. Collaboration is the essence of teamwork; it involves working with others in a positive, cooperative and constructive manner.

Group’s Life Phases Tuckman Model - Tuckman identified five distinct phases within a team or small group’s life: o Forming. o Storming. o Norming. o Performing. o Mourning. - Each stage involved 2 aspects: o Task behaviours – the process by which the group accomplishes its goals, such as problem analysis, designing solutions etc. o Interpersonal relationships – between the group members. Forming - Group members learn about each other and the task at hand. - This stage is often seen through: o Unclear objectives. o Uncommitted members. o Confusion. o Hidden feelings. o Poor listening. - What works: o Having a plan and everyone has a role. o Performance expectations. o Rules of membership. o Team leader. Storming - As group members continue to work, they will engage each other in arguments about the structure of the group, which often is significantly emotional, and illustrate a struggle for status in the group. - This stage is often seen through: o Lack of cohesion. o Subjectivity. o Hidden agendas. o Conflicts. o Confrontation. o Anger. o Failure. - What works: o Team leader not afraid of conflict. o Process to resolve differences. o No tolerance for dysfunctional behavior. o Everyone on the team is held to the same standard of excellence. Norming - Group members establish implicit or explicit rules about how they will achieve their goal. They address the types of communication that will or will not help with the task.

-

-

This stage is often seen through: o Questioning performance. o Reviewing/clarifying objective. o Changing roles. o Testing new ground. o Identifying strengths and weaknesses. What works: o Team members continue to address issues and move on from storming phase. o Taking on greater roles and responsibilities. o Continued commitment to team building. o Motivated to move onto the performing stage.

Performing - Groups reach a conclusion and implement the solution to their issue. - This stage is often seen through: o Creativity. o Initiative. o Flexibility. o Open relationships. o Pride. o Success. - What works: o Team leader willing to delegate and further empower team members. o New and exciting challenges will continue to come their way. o Team commitment for ongoing professional and personal development. Mourning - As the group project ends, the group disbands in the adjournment phase. - What works: o Reasons the ending has occurred. o What happens next? o Opportunities to celebrate closure on the team. o Lessons learnt are explored. Engineering Design Lifecycles – The First Dimension Problems solved by Design - Design problems are where the designer creates a plan for a new artifact in response to a gap. - The central feature of design problem solving is the exploration of alternatives. Design is based on Knowledge - Realm of theory vs. realm of practice. Challenges to Innovation - Finding an idea. - Developing a solution. - Obtaining sponsorship and funding. - Ensuring that the solution is scalable. - Reaching the intended customers. - Beating your competitors. - Timing to match the peak of the market. Professional Role of Engineers - Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate complex value-added engineering products, processes and systems in a modern, team-based environment. o Have technical, expertise, social awareness and a bias toward innovation.

o Add value by strengthening productivity, entrepreneurship and excellence. o Work in an environment that is increasingly based on technologically complex and sustainable products, processes and systems Three Dimensions of Design - Design strategy: o Product concept. o Business objectives. o Customer objectives. - Design Lifecycle: o Product lifecycle. o Concurrent engineering. o Project management. - Problem solving: o Innovation. o Analysis and solutions. o Design optimization. Engineering Design Process The Rational Model of Design - Technical rationality is at the centre of the process: o Designers attempt to optimize a design candidate for known constraints and objectives. o The design process is plan-driven. o The design process is understood in terms of a discrete sequence of stages. The Action-Centric Model of Design - Opposite of Technical Rationality: o Designers use creativity and emotion to generate design candidates. o The design process is improvised. o No universal sequence of stages is apparent – analysis, design and implementation are contemporary and inextricably linked. Product Life Cycle - How a product goes from conceptualization to retirement. Competition drives improvements to product lifecycle - Business must now compete on cost, quality, performance and time-to-market on a worldwide basis. o Respond quickly to customer demands by incorporating new ideas and technologies into products. o Product products that satisfy customers’ expectations. o Adapt to different business environments. o Generate new ideas and combine existing elements to create new sources of value. - Solution – integrated approach to the product realization process: o Involve many more stakeholders in the process from the start. o Place greater emphasis on customer, product quality, cost and time-to-market. o Creativity and innovation. Generic Engineering Lifecycle - Conceive: o Define customer needs. o Consider available technology. o Develop technical and business plans. - Design:

-

-

o Creating the design from the plans. o The plans should describe what the product does; it’s processes and/or systems that will be implemented. Implement: o Transformation of the design into the product. o Hardware and software creation, testing and validation. Operate: o Uses the implemented product, process or system to deliver the intended value. o Maintaining, evolving, recycling and retiring the system.

Product Development Process - A portion of the life cycle dealing with the product development. - Generally includes: o Requirements. o Design. o Implementation/coding/unit testing. o Integration testing/verification. Design Process – Common Elements - Needs Analysis/problem analysis. - Statement of requirements/product specification/design specification. - Product concept/concept of operations. - Solution concept. - High-level design/embodiment. - Detailed design. Systems Engineering Model - Concept o Requirements analysis and specification. - Development o System analysis and design. - Production o Implementation and verification. - Utilization o Installation. - Support o Maintenance. - Retirement o Disposal. Requirements Analysis -

-

-

Should translate customer’s wants into a problem statement that reflects their true needs. o Needs analysis. o Wants normally exceed true needs. Problem statement: o Written in a language of the customer. o Complete: should cover all aspects of design. o Specific: should contain sufficient information to allow specification to be produced. Establishes criteria for judging design.

Concept Generation and Selection - Initially strive to generate large number of preliminary designs. - Collate early ideas in the form of freehand sketches. - Controlled convergence: used to reduce design alternatives to a relatively small number. Product Planning Feasibility Study - Addresses fundamental question of whether to proceed with a project.

o o o o o

Consider the market. Sales potential. Community reaction. Financial analysis, marketing etc. Is it feasible for the company at the moment?

Concurrent Engineering - Systematic approach to the integrated, concurrent design of products and the related processors, including manufacturing and support. - Requires a multi-disciplined design team including personnel from manufacturing, marketing, sales, production, support and maintenance. - Intended to cause developers from the outset to consider all elements of the product life cycle from conception through disposal including: o Cost o Schedule o User requirements - Helps keep companies dynamic and responsive to change as the organisation grows. - Ensures changes are made early in the project. - Reduces delays from late changes due to extra inputs from production or marketing department after prototype production. - Enables a better product to get to the market quicker. - Consumes similar project resources. Overlapping Stages - Concept and approval. - Planning stage. - Product design. - Process design. - Assurance and delivery. - Closure and reflection. Problem Solving – The Second Dimension Engineers role in Design - Engineers “scope, generate, evaluate and realize ideas” o Analyse the problem to be solved. o Creation of ideas  Divergent thinking and the concept domain. o Assessment and selection of ideas  Convergent thinking and the knowledge domain. o Making or brining to life of ideas  Engineering theory and practice. Design is Customer Focused - Design problems reflect the fact that the designer has a client (customer) who, in turn, has in mind a set of users (customers) for whose benefit the designed artifact is being developed. Stakeholders in the Design - Stakeholders are individuals or organizations who stand to gain or lose from the success or failure of a system. o Customer. o Business. o Users of system. o Competitors. o Regulators.

-

o Suppliers. “Good engineering is about Trade-offs – Cost effective, benefit improving, risk reducing trade offs. It’s all about optimizing the design for best match to conflicting stakeholder needs” – Greg Gardner, Toyota Australia.

Understanding Stakeholders

Design and Decision Making - Any engineering project involves a complex decision-making process. The success of which is measured in the effectiveness of the project. - At the core of decision-making in any technical project is the design strategy. It’s the essential creative process of engineering which calls for imagination, application of technical expertise and experience and skillful use of materials. - Engineers need to play a major part in the early stages of decision-making. An understanding basic design principles helps to ensure success. Problem Solving Process

Degree of Novelty - In order of increasing novelty. o Adaptive design:  The solution principle remains unchanged; only the embodiment is adapted to new requirements and constraints. o Variant design:

The sizes and arrangements of parts and assemblies are varied within the limits set by previously designed product structures, which is typical of size ranges and modular products. o Originals design:  New tasks and problems are solved using new or novel combinations of known solution principles.  Innovation is a product that realizes new functions and properties. This could be through novel or new combinations of existing solutions.  Invention is something truly new and is often based on the application of the latest scientific knowledge and insights. 

Convergent and Divergent Thinking - Effective inquiry in design thinking includes: o Convergent thinking of building up to tasking deep reasoning questions by systematically asking lower-level, convergent questions. o Divergent thinking where generative design questions are asked to create the concepts on which the convergent component can act. What makes a good Designer? - The skills often associated with good designers are the ability to: o Tolerate ambiguity that shows up in viewing design as inquiry or as an iterative loop of divergent-convergent thinking. o Maintain sight of the big picture by including systems thinking and systems design. o Handle uncertainty. o Make decisions. o Think as part of at team in a social process o Think and communicate in the several languages of design (business, marketing, design, manufacturing etc.) Design Strategy – The third dimension The Nature of Design - Design problems have: o A goal to be achieved. o Some constraints within which the goal must be achieved. o Some criteria by which a good solution is recognized. Design problems are ill-defined problems - There is no definitive formulation of the problem. - Formulations of the problem are solution-dependent. - There is no definitive solution to the problem. - Any problem formulation may embody inconsistencies. - Proposing solutions is a means of understanding the problem. Experienced vs. Novice Designers - Experienced designers: o Make rapid, controlled exploration of the problem. o Move between solution concepts and problem exploration. o Maiting a broad view across several sub-solution alternatives. o Make designing look easy and ‘intuitive’ - Novice designers: o Can become ‘bogged down’ in data gathering and analysis. o Can become ‘fixated’ on an early solution concept. o Can concentrate on exploring single sub-solutions in depth. o Need to practice and develop basic techniques.

Rational Design Methods

Identifying Opportunities – The User Scenarios Method - The aim of the user scenarios method is to identify and define an opportunity for a new or improved product. o Practice being a user of a product or service.  Decide which user’s point(s) of view to adopt and the variations to the user trip or trips you are going to take. o Observe users in action.  Both experienced and inexperienced users can provide valuable insights. o Question users about their experiences.  This can include the use of formal, structured or unstructured questionnaires and focused group discussions. o Create relevant user personas and scenarios  A persona is a well-defined but hypothetical user and a scenario is a storyline about their use of the product or service. o Define the preliminary goal, context, constraints and criteria for a new product opportunity.  These are the key steps in formulating a good brief for a new product design. Clarifying Objectives – The Objectives Tree Method - The aim of the objectives tree method is to clarify design objectives and sub-objectives and the relationships between them. o Prepare a list of design objectives.

These are taken from the design brief, from questions to the client and from discussion in the design team. o Order the list into sets of higher-level and lower-level objectives.  The expanded list of objectives and sub-objectives is grouped roughly into hierarchical levels. o Draw a diagrammatic tree of objectives, showing hierarchical relationships and interconnections.  The branches (or roots) in the tree represent relationships which suggest means of achieving objectives. Use How-Why Analysis to construct the Objectives Tree 

-

Establishing Functions – The Function Analysis Method - The aim of the function analysis method is to establish the functions required and the system boundary of a new design. o Express the overall function for the design in terms of the conversion of inputs into outputs.  The overall, ‘black box’ function should be broad – widening the system boundary. o Break down the overall function into a set of essential sub-functions.  The sub-functions comprise all the tasks that have to be performed inside the ‘black box’ o Draw a block diagram showing the interactions between sub-functions.  The ‘black box’’ is made ‘transparent’, so that the sub-functions and their interconnections are clarified. o Draw the system boundary.  The system boundary defines the functional limits for the project or device to be designed. o Search for appropriate components for performing the sub-functions and their interactions.  Many alternative components may be capable of performing the identified functions. Setting Performance Requirements – The Performance Specification Method - The aim of the performance specification method is to make an accurate specification of the performance required of a design solution. o Consider the different levels of generality of solution, which might be applicable.  There might be a choice between:  Product alternatives.  Product types.