ENGINEERING DESIGN PROCESS

 A series of steps that engineers follow to find a solution to a problem

 Some of these steps done once while others might be (iterative) repeated
before moving to the next step
 The order of the steps vary from one solution to another
ENGINEERING DESIGN STEPS

Capstone I

Capstone II
DEFINE THE PROBLEM

 What is the problem that needs to be solved?

 Why do we need a solution for this problem
 Who will benefit from the solution
 This will help to narrow the possibilities of the solutions
 What are the limitations and requirements?
 This will help to narrow the possibilities of the solutions
BUILDING BACK GROUND

 Help to understand the required knowledge to proceed with the process

 Benefits from the experience of others
 Know similar solution to avoid redoing what was done and to improve previous
work/solution
 Avoid the problems faced by others
 You may have some solutions/ ideas you did not consider
REQUIREMENTS/CONSTRAINS

 Brainstorm as many as possible solutions before opting to start a design

 Determine all possible constrains
 Constraints are strict limits that a design must meet the objectives in order to be
acceptable.

 Constraints are typically framed as a binary yes or no choice.

 Constraints enable us to reject unacceptable alternatives while objectives enable

us to select among design alternatives that at least acceptable.
REQUIREMENTS/CONSTRAINS

complexity

feasibility
DESIGN CONSTRAINTS & CRITERIA

 Design constraints specify criteria that the implemented project must satisfy
 Large commercial designs may have hundreds of criteria; student projects will
generally have less (~5-20)
 Designs split into a variety of categories
 Always look at the limitations
COMPUTATIONAL CONSTRAINTS &
CRITERIA- Example
 What algorithms/methods does your software need to use? (FFT? Sorting
algorithms? Table lookup?)
 What computing resources does your design require? (Floating point?
Cryptography?)
 What requirements are imposed on your processor? (Clock speed? Memory?)
ELECTRONICS CONSTRAINTS & CRITERIA

 What major components does your design use? (Sensors? LCDs? External
memory?)
 What major interfaces does your design use? (e.g. if your design uses
Ethernet, it will need a physical Ethernet interface and dedicated control
hardware)
 How many I/O lines will your microcontroller need? (Largely derived from
components and interfaces used by your design)
 What special interface considerations might you need? (Buffering? Impedance
matching? Protocol considerations?)
MECHANICAL CONSTRAINTS & CRITERIA

 Physical constraints (size, weight, etc.)

 Mechanical standards (e.g. project follows the rack-mount standard and must
fit within a 1U form factor)
 Durability constraints –How much “abuse” does your project need to be able
to withstand? From what height should your project be able to withstand a
fall?
 Environmental constraints –Does your project need to be waterproof?
Weatherproof? Dust proof? Shock proof? Bullet proof? (Or any other ‘proofs
you can think of?)
ECONOMIC CONSTRAINTS & CRITERIA

 Cost constraints –Generally influenced by the existence of other products

within the market
 Import/Export constraints –Generally influenced by laws of target markets.
Best known constraint in this category would be Removal of Hazardous
Substances (RoHS) regulations, which specifies banned materials for products
bound for the European Union. (Covered in further detail with regulatory
analysis, later in the course)
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS

 Consider alternative solutions (two or three)

 The alternatives must be different designs based on the
constrains/requirements
 Changing components and tools might not be always an alternative solution
 Alternatives in the design not on the components
 Identify key parameters to compare the alternatives using decision making
Matrix
Decision Making between Alternatives
Decision Making
Selecting one choice from a number of choices involving
some level of uncertainty.

Analytic Decision Making

Slow, deliberate, and controlled Intuitive Decision Making
responses to a problem. Quick and relatively automatic responses
to a problem.

Ex: What stock to purchase Ex: Response to yellow traffic light

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Decision Making Matrix
A Decision Matrix
can be very helpful
When faced with decisions To provide a means of converting
based on several factors non numeric criteria to a
that are not all quantitative quantified result
in nature.

To add discipline to the decision

To provide alternate decisions making process and increases the
with confidence that the best likelihood that all factors that
alternative will be chosen. should be considered, have been
considered.
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Developing a Decision Matrix

A decision matrix is used to compare design solutions against one

another, using specific criteria that are often based on project
requirements.

Cost Cost Complexity

Complexity Development
Development Total Total
Time Time
IdeaIdea
#1 #1 3 2 1 6
IdeaIdea
#2 #2 1 1 2 4
IdeaIdea
#3 #3 4 2 4 10
IdeaIdea
#4 #4 2 3 4 9
IdeaIdea
#5 #5 4 1 3 8
IdeaIdea
#6 #6 3 4 4 11

4 3 2 1
4 Best Worst
Decision-Matrix (Pugh’s method)
A Weighted Decision Matrix

The method is an iterative evaluation that

quickly identifies the strongest design solution.

Ideas for Comparison (Step 2)

Criteria
Weights

for
Comparison Generate Score (Step 3)
(Step 1)

Total (Step 4)

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Step 1: Select the Criteria for Comparison
The list of criteria must be developed from the customer needs and engineering specifications

Step 2: Select the Design Solutions to be Compared

The alternative design solutions should be those that proceed from the brainstorming

Step 3: Generate the Score

A favorite design solution should be selected as a datum. All other designs are compared to it relative to each
customer needs. For each comparison, the concept being evaluated is judged to be either better than (“+” score),
about the same (“s” score), or worse than the datum (“-” score). Numeric scores can also be used.

Step 4: Compute the total score

Three scores are tallied, the number of plus scores, the number of minus scores and the total
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Decision Matrix Using a Numeric Scores

A numeric scale can be developed to assign values for each criteria category

Rank Scale Question Scale

4 3 2 1 2 1
Best Worst Yes No

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Decision-Matrix Using a Numeric Ranking

Visible heater and Hidden heater and Disconnected Removable unit

integrated cable integrated cable power system

Cost 4 3 3 1
Cleanable 1 3 4 2
Add/Remove 1 1 3 4
water
Power system 1 1 4 4
Heating period 2 3 3 3

Easy use 1 1 3 4

Total 10 12 20 18
9 4 3 2 1
Best Worst
Identifying Criteria

Cost

Geometry Reusability

Connections Cleanliness Resilience Testability

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Additional Criteria

Development
Product life time
span
Function Manufacturing
Development costs
Material costs
costs
Size Manufacturing
capabilities
Safety
Company
standards
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The Right Decision

Design decisions should be based

on analysis and logic; not personal
opinion.
A Decision Matrix is a design tool
that may be used multiple times
throughout a design process.

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Example
 A simple example of planning the
itinerary for a vacation will be used.
Specifically, the problem is this:
 You have a fixed amount of money to
spend on a two month vacation in
Europe.

 You do not have enough money to see and do as much as you would like.
 So you want to select one of many possible itineraries that maximizes
your enjoyment for a minimum cost.

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Identify the criteria
 Cost: the cost of a particular itinerary, including all living expenses
(food, etc.) but excluding activities like tours and buying souvenirs and gifts.
 Locations: how many locations that you really want to visit are in a given itinerary
(as, possibly, a fraction of all the locations in the itinerary).
 Travel time: total time spent travelling as a fraction of total vacation time.
 Travel quality: are the modes of transportation in themselves enjoyable to you?
(Some people enjoy taking trains instead of planes, even though trains are slower).
 Travel cost: total cost of only the travel components of the itinerary.
 Accommodation: how desirable are the accommodations on a given itinerary?
 Safety: will a particular itinerary take you through areas where you will not feel safe?
 Novelty: how many new places will you visit, as opposed to places you have visited on other
trips?

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Rank and weight the criteria

 Some criteria are probably more important than others.

 The relative ranking of the criteria will affect the evaluation.

 Preferably, there is a way of assigning weights to the criteria so that you can quantify their relative importance (for
example, cost is twice as important as safety).

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Travel Cost Pairwise Comparison
A Criteria Weight Weight %
Cost B A B Rank and weight the criteria
Travel Cost 5 5*X= 17,85%
Novelty C C C C Cost 4 14.28%
Locations D A B C D Novelty 6 21.42%
Travel time E A B C D E Locations 1 3.57%
Safety F F F F F F F
Travel time 2 7.14%
Accommodat G A B C G E F G
ion Safety 7 24.99%
Travel H A B C H E F G H
quality Accommodation 2 7.14%

Travel quality 1 3.57%

The total of all the weights must be 100%.

The weights must obey the relative ranking given by the pairwise comparison.
100 = 5X+ 4X+ 6X + X + 2X + 7X + 2X + 1X
X=3.57

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Rank and weigh the criteria

Value Meaning
-2 performs terribly with respect to the reference

-1 slightly inferior to the reference

0 roughly of equal worth as the reference
+1 slightly superior to the reference

+2 performs significantly better than the reference

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Example: Itinerary for a Vacation Construct the Decision Matrix
CONCEPTS

REFERENCE TRIP Trip A Trip B Trip C

Criteria Wgt Rating Score Rating Score Rating Score Rating Score

Travel cost 0.25 0 0 1 0.25 0.0 0.0 -1 -0.25

Cost 0.20 0 0 0.0 0.0 1 0.20 -1 -0.20
Novelty 0.15 0 0 2 0.3 1 0.15 2 0.3
Locations 0.10 0 0 -1 -0.1 0.0 0.0 2 0.2
Travel time 0.10 0 0 0.0 0.0 -1 -0.1 1 0.1
Safety 0.10 0 0 2 0.2 1 0.1 2 0.2

Accommodation 0.05 0 0 -2 -0.1 -1 -0.05 2 0.1

Travel quality 0.05 0 0 -2 -0.1 0.0 0.0 2 0.1
TOTAL 0.0 0.45 0.30 0.55
RANK 2 3 1
CONTINUE? Yes No Yes
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Construct the Decision Matrix
CONCEPTS

Solution 1 Solution 2 Solution 3

Constraint Wgt Rating Score Rating Score Rating Score

Complexity
Cost
Novelty
Efficiently
Weight
Speed

Wireless
Shape
TOTAL
RANK
CONTINUE?
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