Developing

Engineering Specifications

DR. TAREK A. TUTUNJI

REVERSE ENGINEERING
PHILADELPHIA UNIVERSITY, JORDAN
Understanding the product needs
 Requirements vs. Specifications

 Requirements are desired product functions or

properties that the customer want.
 Example: Easy to transport

 Customer requirements must be translated into a

measurable design targets for identified critical
materials

 Specifications are measurable values (numeric and

units) that guide the engineering design.
 Example: Weight and Dimensions
 Engineering Specifications

 Physical requirements
 Functional performance
 Reliability
 Life-cycle concerns
 Manufacturing/assembly requirements
 Resource Concerns
 Human factors
 Engineering Specifications

Physical requirements

 Any property that

is measurable, whose value
describes a state of
a physical system
 Physical properties
 Example:
 Weight; Size; Conductivity
 Spatial envelope
 Example:
 How will the product fit with other
existing objects
 Engineering Specifications

Functional Performance

 What should the

product do? What
platforms will it
support?

 Flow of energy
 Flow of information
 Flow of materials
 Operational steps
 Operation sequence
 Engineering Specifications

Reliability

 Last a long time

 What to Measure?
 Mean time between
failures
 Safety
 Engineering Specifications

Life-cycle concerns

 Distribution
 Maintainability
 Testability
 Engineering Specifications

Manufacturing/assembly

 Materials
 Quantity
 Company capabilities
 Engineering Specifications

Resource concerns

 Time
 Cost
 Equipment
 Standards
 Environment
 Engineering Specifications

Human Factors

 How humans behave

physically and
psychologically in
relation to particular
the product?

 Appearance
 Force & motion control
 Ease of control & sense
 Quality Function Development (QFD)

 QFD is a planning matrix tool that helps to

transform the customer requirements into
engineering specifications and to measure their
importance
Quality Function Design (QFD)
 Case Study: Aisle Chair
 Design a wheel chair to
rapidly help passengers
board and deplane a
Boeing 787 Dreamliner
1. Transfer the passenger
from their regular wheel
chair to the aisle chair
2. Wheel the passenger into
the plane and down the
aisle to the assigned seat
3. Transfer the passenger
from the aisle chair to the
assigned airplane seat
 Customer requirements

 What the customer wants?

1. Transfer from personal to aisle chair
 Easy positioning of seat height
 Easy positioning of chair
 Minimum effort
 Good lifting position
 Minimum time to transfer

2. Aisle chair movement

 Easy to move
 Fits in aircraft aisle
 Good stability

3. Transfer from aisle chair to seat

 Aisle chair close to aircraft seat
 Easy positioning of seat height
 Minimum effort
 Minimum time transfer
 Engineering Specification

 How will the customer requirements be met?

 Seat width relative to frame width (%)
 Steps to adjust seat (steps)
 Force to adjust seat height (N)
 Lifting force required by the agent (N)
 Force to push chair (N)
 Time to transfer between seats (sec)
 Aisle seat dimensions (cm3)
 Aisle seat weight (Kg)
 Reference

The Mechanical Design Process (Chapter 6), 4th edition

by David G. Ullman. McGraw Hill 2010