Engineering Design Methodology

This course begins with the need rather than the solution. It develops a systematic approach to requirements, concept generation, functional breakdown, systems thinking, engineering analysis, reliability, verification planning, and design optimization.

Core Topics

Customer needs and product requirements
Functional decomposition
Concept development and selection
Engineering fundamentals and physics of failure
Design for reliability and manufacturability
Verification planning and design iteration

Detailed Course Outline

Defining the Basic Statement of Need
- Starting with customer verbatims
- Identifying what the customer is actually trying to accomplish
- Separating the underlying need from suggested or assumed solutions
- Consolidating multiple customer statements into a basic statement of need
- Identifying customer expectations and critical product needs
- Translating the basic need into product requirements
- Defining performance expectations
- Identifying operating and environmental conditions
- Establishing measurable requirements and design targets
Understanding the Structured Product Development Process
- Relationship between need, requirements, concepts, analysis, verification, and refinement
- Why design activities are linked rather than independent steps
- Moving from broad product need toward increasingly detailed design decisions
- Using iteration as a normal part of product development
- Identifying problems early, when design changes are easier and less costly
Functional Decomposition
- Defining the primary function of the product
- Identifying supporting functions
- Breaking complex functions into manageable sub-functions
- Developing a functional hierarchy
- Keeping functions independent of predetermined mechanisms
- Relating individual components to the functions they perform
- Recognizing when one component performs multiple functions
- Recognizing when several components combine to perform one function
Concept Generation
- Developing alternative ways to perform each required function
- Structured brainstorming around individual functional needs
- Maintaining solution-independent thinking during early concept development
- Avoiding premature commitment to familiar solutions
- Combining individual functional solutions into complete product concepts
- Considering incremental improvements and fundamentally different approaches
- Identifying concepts worthy of further engineering development
Concept Evaluation and Selection
- Establishing criteria for comparing competing concepts
- Design and performance considerations
- Manufacturing considerations
- Project, cost, schedule, and development-risk considerations
- Using a baseline or existing design for comparison
- Pugh Matrix concept evaluation
- Identifying strengths and weaknesses of competing concepts
- Combining desirable elements from multiple concepts
- Refining and reevaluating promising concepts
Design for Manufacturability and Assembly
- Considering manufacturing requirements during design rather than after design completion
- Relationship between product design and manufacturing capability
- Reducing unnecessary part count
- Combining functions where appropriate
- Standardizing components
- Simplifying product and component architecture
- Designing within the natural capabilities of the intended manufacturing process
- Using tolerances appropriate to functional requirements
- Reducing unnecessary assembly operations
- Providing access and orientation for assembly
- Using self-locating and mistake-proofing features
Identifying System Interdependencies
- Viewing the product as a complete interacting system
- Mechanical load transfer between components
- Dimensional relationships and tolerance interactions
- Tolerance stack-up
- Motion transfer and coupled mechanisms
- Thermal interactions between components and materials
- Environmental interactions
- Assembly-induced interactions
- Identifying unintended consequences of changes made elsewhere in the system
Identifying the Stresses Acting on the Design
- Mechanical loads and stresses
- Static and dynamic loading
- Cyclic loading and vibration
- Thermal stresses
- Environmental stresses
- Manufacturing-induced stresses
- Assembly stresses
- Transportation and handling stresses
- Combined and interacting stresses
- Connecting system interactions to the stresses experienced by individual components
Failure Modes and Failure Mechanisms
- Distinguishing a failure mode from a failure mechanism
- Relating loss of product function to component-level failure
- Connecting applied stresses to physical damage mechanisms
- Fatigue
- Wear
- Creep
- Fracture
- Environmental and material degradation
- Considering material behavior when identifying likely failure mechanisms
- Identifying potential failures before prototype testing
Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (DFMEA)
- Using product functions as the basis for failure analysis
- Identifying potential failure modes
- Identifying the effects of those failures
- Identifying potential causes and mechanisms
- Evaluating design risk
- Prioritizing areas requiring engineering attention
- Identifying design actions intended to reduce risk
- Using DFMEA as one part of the reliability process rather than as a substitute for engineering analysis
Physics-of-Failure Approach
- Connecting stress, material behavior, damage mechanisms, and failure
- Identifying the physical processes capable of degrading a component
- Determining which stresses activate the relevant failure mechanisms
- Considering material, geometry, environment, and service conditions together
- Reducing stresses that drive damaging mechanisms
- Designing components to resist expected failure mechanisms
- Designing for the required service life rather than waiting for failures to reveal weaknesses
Verification Planning
- Connecting product requirements to verification activities
- Distinguishing verification from validation
- Functional testing
- Mechanical stress testing
- Environmental testing
- Durability testing
- Accelerated life testing
- Developing test conditions from identified operating stresses
- Designing tests to activate the same failure mechanisms expected in actual service
- Using testing to confirm engineering assumptions and analytical predictions
Test Results, Failure Analysis, and Design Iteration
- Evaluating verification results against product requirements
- Investigating failures discovered during testing
- Determining whether observed failures match predicted mechanisms
- Identifying weaknesses revealed through testing and analysis
- Modifying geometry, materials, tolerances, or mechanisms as required
- Repeating analysis and verification after design changes
- Using repeated design-test-refine cycles to improve performance and reliability
Integrating the Complete Design Methodology
- Maintaining traceability from customer need through product requirements
- Connecting functions to concepts and component designs
- Connecting component interactions to stresses
- Connecting stresses to failure mechanisms
- Connecting predicted failure mechanisms to verification methods
- Using analysis, testing, and iteration as an integrated development process
- Balancing function, reliability, manufacturability, cost, and project constraints throughout development

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