Understanding the Engineering Design

Process
By Tyler Keefe
Throughout history engineers have been tasked with applyingapplied
mathematics, and scientific knowledge in inventing and innovatingto think of
new solutions for technical, societal and commercial problems. While
inventing, innovating, designing, building, maintaining, researching, and
improving a variety of structures, machines, tools, materials, and systems
engineers must always be conscious of some limitations. Sometimes these
limitations are imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. In order
to keep all of this in mind while developing solutions to all the problems
presented to engineers in this ever evolving world, the engineering design
process was integrated to make sure everything is covered by the end.

The engineering design process is a series of steps that engineers follow to

guide them as they solve problems. The steps in order can be seen in Figure
1. It works by first establishing the problem, then researching of background
information, specification of requirements, followed by brainstorming solution
and evaluation of those solutions. After choosing a solution, it continues to
development of the solution which includes prototyping, followed by testing
the solution. Based on solution results you may either need to reevaluate the
solution, or if it fulfills the criteria you can continue to communicating the
results. This process is extremely useful since if used properly it works
through each major roadblock an engineer may encounter. The main
limitations to this process is that it requires engineers to be tedious and
meticulous on each and every step so sometimes takes longer than some
would hope for.

Define the Problem

Engineering design tasks always occur in response to a human need such as
a new producte, system, or machine. Important questions to ask at this point
are:

What is the
problem or
need?
Who has the
problem or
need?
Why is it
important to
solve?

After answering the

previousfollowing
questions you may
continue on to
formulating a
problem statement in
clear and
unambiguous terms.
The problem
statement should
specifically address
the problem yet be
broad enough not to
deter certain
solutions. The
problem statement

although concise should be flexible enough to allow for engineering

ingenuity.

Background Research
Background research is essential in speeding up the design process. This
step allows for the process to learn from the experience of others, either is
being existingwhether solutions to similar problems, or avoiding mistakes
normally done in the past with a similar problem. Research is not limited to
just looking up previous solutions, asyet you can also look into information
about the target user/customer. Depending on theThe exact usage of the
solution they may be looking for maymay alter how you end up designing
specific parts.

Specify the Requirements

TSpecifying the requirements, or also known as establishing a criteria for
success, are the exact specifications a design solution must meet in order to
be considered successful. Included here would be specifications or limitations
given by the customer. Some of the criteria here is allowed to be vague and
further refined or modified as testing goes on. Much of the specifications
here should be coming from the extensive background research. Not all
criteria here will be weighted equally in defining success but will be ranked
which is the most important in choosing of a solutions.

Brainstorm Solutions
The next step of the design process focuses on creativity in generating new
ideas that may solve the problem. In life there is never one specific way to
solve a design process, so it is best to generate as many good possibilities
during this step. The main importance of this step is so that you dont narrow
the scope of view onto one or two possible solutions while the best solution
you may have not discussed yet.

Evaluate and choose best Solution

This step now critiquescs all of the solutions you brainstormed. Here you are
looking at which solutions would meet all of the initial requirements since
some solutions may meet more of the requirements then another, or more
accurately meet the most important of criteria. Some of the following may be
used for analysis of solutions:

Functional Analysis
Industrial Design /Ergonomics
Mechanical/Strength Analysis
Economic and Market
Analysis

Product Safety and Liability

Regulatory and Compliance
Manufacturability
Testability

Developing a
Solution and
Building a
Prototype

After now deciding

on the exact solution
you are going to be working on, this step focuses on the refinement and
improvement of the given solution you picked. After continuous work and
refinement of the solutions you eventually can get to the second part of this
step which is the prototyping step. A prototype is typically the first fully
operational production of the complete design solution. Most of the time the
prototype is not fully tested and will not operate directly as intended, but
allows for testing of the design solution under real conditions. It is important
to remember that this step may be repeated multiple times because as you
test you may realize that you need to change or alter the initial prototype in
order to meet a certain criteria.

Testing and Redesign of Solution

The testing and redesign step at times may consume a hefty amount
of the design process, yet these multiple iterations you run on redesigning
the solution just mean you are getting closer to having a final solution.
During testing you may find new problems, make changes, and test slightly
altered solutions before you finally get to the final solution you want.
Normally after testing of the prototype you get into two different situations.
1. Solution meets the requirements and criteria. This means that after
intensive testing you decided that the current prototype was able to
meet all of the needs you specified in the beginning as well is being a
complete solution to the problem you initialized at the start. If all of
this is true you can continue onto the last and final step of design
process.
2. If the solution fails to meet some of the requirements or criteria you
started out with, you need to now possibly go back in the design
process. Depending on the severity ofn the failure of the prototype you
may need to go all the way back to brainstorming and evaluating
solutions, or if it was just a smaller failure but the overall design was

solid you may just need to back to redesigning and building of a

prototype. There is no exact science in how far back in the process you
must go or how much you may need to redesign, but after working on
engineering projects more and more you will begin to get a sense of
what went wrong and where you may need to go back to in order to
correct it.

Communicate the Results

After grueling through all the other steps of the engineering design
process now you must figure out a way to communicate the results of
all your testing. Depending on what your project or /problem was may
influence how you communicate the results such as a final report or a
display board for a school project, or a full blown documented report if
youre a professional engineer solving problems for an employer.

Example Conclusion of Engineering Design Process

The engineering design process is currently used all over industry and
understanding the steps behind the process is key to succeeding as an
engineer. To conclude the process the following will give a full example
of how you may see the engineering process used in the real world.

Imagine yourself in a group of four and the teacher provides you with
spaghetti and marshmallows and tells you to construct the tallest
tower possible using on those materials. The following will provide an
example of how the engineering design process may be applied to a
find a solution.

Define the Problem The problem here is to construct the tallest tower
possible using only the available materials provided to you.
Background Research Here you can imagine talking with your group
about typical structures found in nature, or typical building layouts.
Talk about what type of structures work well for building for height. Try
not to reinvent the wheel.
Specify Requirements So the first requirement is it must stand up tall
on its own, and for a second requirement lets pretend that it needs to
be able to stand freely for at least 20 seconds.
Brainstorm Now each group member decides to sketch out a possible
solution to how they think the tower should be constructed.
Evaluate and choose Solution After discussing pros and cons of each
sketch with your group members, you decided on combining a few
from each of the sketches and decided on a final sketch.
Developing a Solution/Prototype Based on the sketch you decided for
the final solution in the last sketch, you build your first tower which is
the initial prototype.

1.) https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/design-better-faster-with-rapid-prototyping/

Test Solution Initially you test the tower and after 10 second of free
standing it begins to tilt and collapses.
Redesign Solution After realizing that it could stand for a short time,
but for a little bit yet then falls over, you all decided to create a wider
base to add a more stable foundation.
Testing of Redesign This time after letting the tower free stand for
over a minute it still has no change. Clearly the decisions made in the
redesign process were constructive in creating a better final solution.
Communication of Results You decide to give a small demonstration
in front of the class. You decided to talk about the reasoning you made
a wider base based on what you discovered during testing.

Conclusion

The engineering design process is a useful process used both within

your time at college but also within most of the current companies in
industry. It excels at making sure that all the parts of the design
process are equally weighted and stressed to make sure you can fully
utilize your time and create the best solution. Each step helps to build
off of the next yet doesnt need to rigorously go in order. The process
boils down to eight easy steps: define the problem, background
research, specify the requirements, brainstorming, evaluate and
choose solution, development and prototype of solution, testing and
possible redesigning, and communication of results. Yet the reason this
method is so widely used in industry is the possibly for it to be iterative
process, in which sometimes the desired result only is discovered from
multiple cycles of running through the steps before your final solution.