Design Concept Generation and Evaluation (Week 6) Flashcards
What is a concept
A concept is an idea that can be represented in a rough sketch or with notes of what might someday be a product
What are the steps to forming concepts?
- Ideation
- Brainstorming—a group oriented technique
- Patents—extensive patent search may be required. (Note:
there are over 5 million patents in the U.S.) - Reverse engineering—studying existing products
- Reference books and trade journals—most reference
books give analytical techniques and few design ideas
(Trade journals are a good source, but generally are
targeted at specific disciplines) - Experts to help generate concepts—a good source of
information are manufacturer’s catalogues (check the
Thomas Registry) - Functional decomposition and morphological analysis
Explain the Ideation step
- Get a general idea of the design
problem and develop different ways
to tackle it
* Do not worry about practicality
* Do not refine ideas - Find feasible ideas
* If only some elements of an idea
work, extract them for inclusion in
the next iteration - Pick, choose and recombine ideas
* Using useful elements from all ideas - Refine
* List at least three concepts and add
elements you really need in the
finished product
Explain the Brainstorming step
- Organized approach for producing creative ideas by letting the
mind think without interruption - May be done either individually or in a group
- In group brainstorming sessions, the participants are
encouraged, and often expected, to share their ideas with
one another as soon as they are generated - The key to brainstorming is not to interrupt the thought
process. As ideas come to the mind, they are captured and
stimulate the development of better ideas - An essential element of brainstorming is putting criticism ‘on
hold’. Instead of immediately stating what might be wrong with
an idea, the participants focus on extending or adding to it,
reserving criticism for a later ‘critical stage’ of the process. - By suspending judgment, you create a supportive atmosphere
where participants feel free to generate unusual ideas
Explain Patents
- In the 1920s, engineers at Sperry Gyroscope Company developed
a clever design for a bearing that would hold the end of the gyro
shaft in position with great accuracy both axially and laterally,
would support the gyro, and would have low friction - It was patented and put into service with great success
- However, in 1965 the same basic design was discovered in a
notebook belonging to Leonardo da Vinci dating from about 1500
Explain Reverse Engineering
Studying how existing products work
* Should look at:
* Entire device and how it interacts with other objects
* How components are fastened together
* Function of individual components
* Interfaces to determine flow of energy, information or
materials
Explain the steps of Functional Decomposition
Step 1: Find the overall function that needs to be accomplished
Goal is to generate a single statement of the overall function
based on the customer requirements. All design problems have
one or two “most important” functions. These must be stated in
a single concise sentence.
Example: Portable kayak
Design a kayak that can be folded into a package small enough
to fit in a trunk of a car
Step 2: Decompose the function into subfunctions (perform
functional decomposition). Goal is to refine the overall
function statement as much as possible.
Guidelines:
1. Document what not how
2. Use standard methods and notations whenever possible for
describing subfunctions
3. Consider the logical relationships between the functions to
determine their sequence
4. Match inputs and outputs in the functional decomposition
5. Break the main function down as finely as possible using a
block diagram
What is functional decomposition and morphological analysis
Functional decomposition is used to identify the
necessary product functionality
Morphological analysis is used to explore alternative
means and combinations of achieving that functionality
For each element of product function, there may be a
number of possible solutions. The morphological chart is
prepared and used to develop alternative combinations
of means to perform functions and each feasible
combination represents a potential solution.
* Morphology: The science of the form and structure
Functional Decomposition &
Morphological Analysis
What is the evaluation of technology readiness
Objective—to determine the readiness of the technologies that may
be used in the design concept. Immature technology will lead to a
poor-quality product or cancellation of a project due to cost
overruns
How to conduct technology readiness evaluation
Six measures to determine if a technology is mature:
1. Can the technology be manufactured with known
processes?
2. Are the critical parameters that control the function
identified?
3. Are the safe operating parameters known?
4. Have the failure modes been identified?
5. Does hardware exist that demonstrates positive
answers to the above four questions?
6. Is the technology controllable throughout the
product’s life cycle?
What is Go/No-Go screening?
Goal is to compare each concept with the customer
requirements in an absolute fashion
* Each customer requirement must be transformed into
a question to be addressed to each concept
* The questions should be answerable as either Yes or
Maybe (Go), or No (No-Go)
* If a concept has only a few No-Go responses, then it
may be worth modifying the design rather than
eliminating it
What is a Decision Matrix?
- Provides a means of scoring each concept relative to
another in its ability to meet the customer
requirements - Tests the completeness and understanding of the
requirements, identifies the strongest concepts, and
helps foster new concepts
