Engineering Design Process
Edinburgh's Telford College
ENGINEERING
ACCESS TO ENGINEERING
F5k512 Engineering design
Design is a problem solving activity in which the designer has to convert the customer’s needs for a product into a fully functional design.
The customer’s needs are presented in the form of a design brief. A design brief is a description in broad terms of the client’s needs which may contain any of the following:
• Client’s requirements • Functional details • Cost per item • Market details • Any special quality requirements
A design brief need not necessarily ask for the origination of a new product but may instead ask for the re-styling of an existing product or changing of a product to allow for a more cost effective production.
Sales and marketing use the design brief to establish precise information on the new or revised product’s requirements including the range and potential applications and environments in which the product will be used. Having established this information, Sales and Marketing must clearly define the exact requirements of the customer to ensure they are incorporated into the specification.
There is no easy way of solving the design problem and transforming the specification into a design solution.
Whatever the system whereby the initial specification is produced, the method used to translate it into the final design always follows a basic pattern and can be summarised in the following five steps.
1. Identification of the problem. 2. Analysis of the problem. 3. Design synthesis. 4. Design evaluation. 5. Development of the selected design.
Identification of the Problem
The total problem to be solved usually comprises several problems which are not necessarily directly related and which must be identified at an early stage in the design process. These problems can be classified as problems associated with:
• Function
ENGINEERING
ACCESS TO ENGINEERING
F5k512 Engineering design
Design is a problem solving activity in which the designer has to convert the customer’s needs for a product into a fully functional design.
The customer’s needs are presented in the form of a design brief. A design brief is a description in broad terms of the client’s needs which may contain any of the following:
• Client’s requirements • Functional details • Cost per item • Market details • Any special quality requirements
A design brief need not necessarily ask for the origination of a new product but may instead ask for the re-styling of an existing product or changing of a product to allow for a more cost effective production.
Sales and marketing use the design brief to establish precise information on the new or revised product’s requirements including the range and potential applications and environments in which the product will be used. Having established this information, Sales and Marketing must clearly define the exact requirements of the customer to ensure they are incorporated into the specification.
There is no easy way of solving the design problem and transforming the specification into a design solution.
Whatever the system whereby the initial specification is produced, the method used to translate it into the final design always follows a basic pattern and can be summarised in the following five steps.
1. Identification of the problem. 2. Analysis of the problem. 3. Design synthesis. 4. Design evaluation. 5. Development of the selected design.
Identification of the Problem
The total problem to be solved usually comprises several problems which are not necessarily directly related and which must be identified at an early stage in the design process. These problems can be classified as problems associated with:
• Function