Design Process
Design Process
PROCESS
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The role of the design engineer
Engineer Customer
Designer Client
Manufacturer
User
Operator
Need for
communication
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Design Process
Customer needs a solution to a problem
Requirement analysis
System Design
(Conceptual Design + Preliminary Design)
Assess needs
Statement of problem
Requirement specifications
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Needs assessment
• The aim is not to solve the problem but to
understand what the problem is
– What does this client want?
– What is the problem that the design is to solve?
• The objectives (goals) and constraints of the
problem should be identified
– Objectives: summary of the needs that the design
is to satisfy (helps us to choose among alternative
design configurations)
– Constraints: the design must satisfy (takes logical
values 0 or 1, helps to decide acceptable or not)
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How to assess needs? (1/2)
• Question the customer
– To define the design problem
– To understand budget and schedule constraints
– Reliability and maintenance constraints
• Explore resources
– Expertise (knowledge and experience)
– Technical literature (books, journals,www)
– Measurement and testing equipments (equipment
suppliers)
– Similar designs (competitors, patent search)
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How to assess needs? (2/2)
• Search legal and regulatory restrictions
– Allocation of frequency bands
– Restriction on tower heights
– Environmental impacts
– Safety
• Manufacturability issues
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Importance of manufacturability and
communication
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Statement of the problem (2/3)
• Tools that help
– Question the customer
– Differentiate Needs and Wants
Wants
True needs
Needs as reflected to
problem statement
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Statement of the problem (3/3)
– Make Input/Output Analysis
– Preview the user interface and operation of
the device
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Objective trees
• Make a list of objectives according to
the assessed needs and restrictions
• Group the relevant objectives
• Form a hierarchical tree structure
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Specify design requirements
• Translating client and user needs into
terminology that helps us find ways to realize
those needs and measure how well we met
them
– How will everyone that takes part in the design
know that it is done?
– It turns the problem statement into a technical,
quantified specification
• Sets out criteria for verifying that the design
meets its intended objectives
• Describes the test for verification
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Specifications
• How can I express what the client
wants in terms that helps me as an
engineer
• Expressible as numbers and measures
• Precise description of the properties of
the object being designed
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Specification types (1/2)
• Design specs : provide basis for evaluating the
design
• Functional specs: what the thing must do?
– Input-output relations
– Black boxes and transparent boxes
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Specification types (2/2)
• Performance specs: tells us how well the
design is
• Metrics : Tools for testing and measuring the
performance
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Documentation
– Overview (executive summary)
– Statement of the problem
– Operational description (draft user’s manual)
– Requirement specifications
– Design deliverables
– Preliminary system test plan
– Implementation considerations
– Service and maintanence
– Manufacture
• Appendices
– A: Studies (experimental results)
– B: Relevant standards and legal and regulatory restrictions
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Design Process
Customer needs a solution to a problem
Requirement analysis
System Design
(Conceptual Design + Preliminary Design)
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Conceptualization
• Develop a rough, early form of solution
• An idea or notion that can be a solution
• Primitive solutions, no definite form or
character
• Lack organization and structure
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Idea generation
• Brainstorming
– Seek quantity of concepts not quality
– No judgement or analysis of concepts
• Search similar designs
– Patents: no need to reinvent the wheel
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Synthesis
• Create a well-defined structure for the
concept
• Sufficient detail that helps analysis
• Preliminary design
• Block diagram of the system
• Each block will be designed in the
detailed design
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Block-diagram basics
• Implementable with a single technology
– analog or digital
• Common functions grouped in one block
– common power supply
• Try to avoid feedback loops between blocks
– designed by different engineers, may be unstable
• Keep in mind the standards
– Logic 0/1 voltage levels for TTL and MOS
technologies
• Specify the parameters of analog signals
– Frequency, BW
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Analysis
• Determine if the synthesized system meets
the objectives
• Determine the risks
• Develop mathematical model for the blocks
• Analyze (simulations or experiments)
• Go back to synthesis, refine a solution
• Analyze again
• Evaluate the alternative solutions
• Choose one solution
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Documentation
• The concept
– Explain the principle of operation
– Background information
• The block diagram
– With specification of inputs and outputs
• Functional description of the blocks
– Subsection for each block
• Description of the system
– How the blocks interact with one another to make
the system work
• System analysis
– Results of mathematical analysis, simulations and
experiments and evaluations
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Example
• Customer needs a solution to a problem
of designing a guitar tuner
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• Problem Statement
– The accuracy of the device will be
measured by the difference between the
pitch of a tuned string and the correct
pitch. The limits should be well within
those of a guitar that has been
professionally tuned and then played for
one week without further tuning
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The guitar tuner
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Objective trees
Fast
Good performance
for beginners Accurate
Guitar Tuner
Inexpensive
Marketable Portability
Convenience
(ease of operation)
Maintanence 29
Ranking objectives
Pairwise comparison charts
P I C M Total
Portability Inexpensive Convenience Maintenance
P - 0 0 1/2 1/2
I 1 - 1 1 3
C 1 0 - 1 2
M 1/2 0 0 - 1/2
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Weighted objectives
Ranking Add Weighted objectives
points 1
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Weighted objective trees
Fast
Good performance 0.3| 0.12
for beginners Accurate
0.4 | 0.4 0.7|0.28
Guitar Tuner Inexpensive
0.4|0.24
Portability
Marketable 0.15|0.09
0.6 | 0.6
Convenience
0.3|0.18
Maintanence
0.15|0.09 32
How to specify design requirements
• Search out expert sources
– The guitar can drift up to 20 cents in a
week
• f1 is X cents higher than f2: f1/f2=2 X/1200
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Evaluation
F A P I C M Total
0.12 0.28 0.24 0.09 0.18 0.09
S1 8 6 4 2 0 2 3.96
0.96 1.68 0.96 0.18 0 0.18
S2 0 6 10 8 2 2 5.34
0.0 1.68 2.4 0.72 0.36 0.18
S3 4 4 6 2 2 8 4.3
0.48 1.12 1.44 0.18 0.36 0.72
S4 2 8 2 6 10 4 5.66
0.24 2.24 0.48 0.54 1.8 0.36
Requirement analysis
System Design
(Conceptual Design + Preliminary Design)
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Writing Technical Reports
• Common mistakes
– Poor organization (Outline)
– Spelling, grammar, and punctuation
mistakes
– Misused words
– Redundancy
– Lengthy paragraphs and/or sentences
– Missing figure captions
– Missing citations
– Inappropriate tone (formal)
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