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Personal Engineering Design Process

Personally, I view Engineering Design as an iteration of problem-solving process based on concrete research and accurate calculations in order to solve a problem and meet the needs of stakeholders. My personal design process is summarized in the following steps, which form 3 main phases of designing.

· Problem analysis

· Refining and reframing the problem

· Brainstorming

· Scoping and narrowing

· Comparing and selecting

· Implementation

 

Phase 1: Analyzing and Reframing the Problem

Understanding of the problem is crucial to solving the problem correctly and efficiently. Misinterpretation of the problem will set up more barriers to solve the problem. Therefore, analyzing and reframing the problem in a clear way will contribute to a legitimate start to problem-solving process later.

 

By analyzing the problem, not only do I need to be clear about the high-level and detailed objectives, in another word, the purpose of the design, but also need to fully understand the stakeholder’s demands and their specific needs. Owing to the variety of stakeholders, not all their needs will be satisfied by one design. Thus, looking for trade-offs for each stakeholder will magnify the effectiveness of the design to most extent.

 

By understanding the needs of stakeholders, the designer will have a better point of view towards the design constraints, which will restrict the entire design in a constructive way. Afterwards, necessary background research proceeds based on previous understanding of the problem.

 

As soon as the problem is analyzed in an understandable manner, it is important for designers to decide if the problem is a decent, solvable engineering problem. If not, refining and reframing the problem by investigating more stakeholders and developing more/less reasonable constraints and/ metrics is crucial in maintaining designer’s motivation and interests towards the problem. The designers can iterate through the reframing process several times until no more justifications on changes needed.

 

Now the problem is clear enough, so that the designers can move forward to next phase.

Phase 2: Generating and Selecting design concept/solution

The second phase of my design process consists of expanding the variety of concepts into a wide range and narrowing them down to the final design concept/solution.

 

By Brainstorming, the second phase of the design starts with a wide range of different, innovative design concepts. Afterwards, it is designer’s responsibility to compare the design concepts with the constraints, eliminating the unrealistic concepts but maintaining innovation based on their design values.

 

After obtaining diversity in feasible design concepts, it’s suggested for designers to narrow down the concepts and scope the validity of each concept. At this stage, reasonable combination of similar design concepts will take place. The combining stage is based on designers’ justification and different engineering analysis tools (Lotus Blossom Method). Enormous secondary research on those design concepts will serve as evidences to justify each concept. At the same time, research on reference designs will be added, with which the designers can compare their own concepts. This is also a necessary process to avoid duplicate of exiting design concept, while maintaining the ethic as an engineering designer.

 

Before selecting the final design concept amongst several potential concepts, comparison with the reference designs and additional features to the concepts should be made by designers. To reinforce each design concept, different modifying and/ analysis tools (Lotus Blossom Method) will be applied. When all the design concepts and settled, engineering designers need to carefully choose one final design concept based on their design value, the criteria of the design and all other considerations that they hold during the entire design process.

 

Some other engineering analysis tools (Pugh Chart, Pair-wise Comparison Matrix) will be commonly used while selecting the final design decision. Those tools to some extent help but determine the decision for designers. Designers need to justify each choice and clearly know the trade-offs for the selected design concept.

Phase 3: Implementing Solution and Reflection

At this phase, after selecting the final design concept, designers need to modify the design features by eliminating the flaws of the design in order to implement the design concept into a concrete design solution. Designers proceed to do research on each additional feature, deciding if the new features will benefit the design holistically. Research will become more detailed and specific depending on how detailed the additional features are.

 

The process continues with building prototypes as the additional features for the design are justified. Prototype consists of visual and physical prototype, which varies in its fidelity. Visual prototype containing sketches, flat drawings, dimension drawings and software drawings, shows holistic and subtle parts well, while physical prototype demonstrates better functionality. The purpose of prototype is to show functionality of the real product, and how well the design meets all the requirements. As fidelity of prototype increases, more perspectives of the design can be shown.

 

When a proper prototype is built, it is important for engineering designers to get feedbacks from critique. Critiquing is a crucial process for designers to review their design, and it is the best opportunity to make some final changes. When those changes are made and the prototype passes all the tests, the process is completed with final reflection of the product.

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