RMIT Classification: Trusted

Project Title
Design Proposal

Date:

Design Team Name / Number:

Design Team Members:

Version: Draft / Final

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Executive Summary
Generally, the Executive Summary is the very last section that you write.

You can consider the Executive Summary to be the highlights package for your Design
proposal. The Executive Summary should contain key information on your engineering
design project allowing a company boss or “executive” to make a decision about proceeding
or approving the project. This will be a decision to move your work into a detailed design
project.

A common mistake is to not include the key findings our outcomes and instead only tell the
reader what is contained within the report. You want to avoid your Executive Summary
sounding like an elaboration of the contents page. A good approach is to imagine someone
just reading the Executive Summary and nothing else. Is the complete story captured? If
yes, then you are all set.

The executive summary should be around a page long and no longer than two pages.

Table of Figures
This can be generated from the references tab in word.

Table of Contents
Under the references tab in MSWord you can automatically generate a table of contents
based on the headings. In general, the Table of Contents should provide clarity. It is
suggested you only show one level of subheadings as including level 3 headings may make
the table of contents difficult to read.

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1 Introduction
This section introduces the reader to the context. Topics to consider covering include:

 Who are the clients and other key stakeholders?

 What is the location or context of the design project.
 How was the Design Brief developed and by whom?
 What problem will you be addressing?
 Why is it an important topic i.e. why do we care about solving it,
 What the Design Proposal covers. You might have a subheading for the scope of the
Design Project.
 Provides any relevant background information.
The Introduction is your opportunity to convince the reader that this is a worthwhile project
that justifies you spending 12 weeks developing a solution. You might end your introduction
using a sentence like, “therefore the opportunity exists to investigate …(the core issue)…
through an engineering design project”.

2 Discovery
This section covers the insights that you generated from your Discovery into the problem
space. This could include findings from your literature review as well as your discussions
with your clients at the relevant events held through the semester.

3 Problem Definition
This section should show your process for taking the insights that you generated and turning
them into a succinct problem statement. Accompanying your problem statement should be
your Design Requirements broken down into the constraints and objectives. At this stage
you might also provide the metrics that will be used to measure each design requirement.

4 Ideation
This section covers the work in developing multiple diverse design options. You should
outline the methods or techniques you used in order to develop multiple design options.
Remember you are trying to convince your client that you have attempted to map out all
possible design options. You might want to provide some information on each design option
but remember the level of development (detail) can be low at this stage.

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5 Screening
Detail how you screened your developed design options against the design constraints and
design objectives including supporting material, e.g. preliminary screen, weighted sum
model / multi criteria decision analysis. The section ends with a justified preferred design
option. Remember to enhance the readability of this section you may have your major tables
included in the main body and then place any supplementary tables in an appendix. For
example, including the final weighted sum model is important and should be in the main
body, but showing the calculations for determine the weightings and the associated tables
could go in an appendix. Similarly the calculations for scoring each design option against
objectives might go in the appendix with a table in the main body providing the results of
these calculations.

6 Embodiment
In this section you will report on how the conceptual design was ‘fleshed out’ i.e. how you
took the conceptual design to a higher level of development. This may include the use of a
Morphological Chart to determine the different ways a function could be performed. You will
report on the approximate sizing, materials, positioning etc and start to determine how the
solution interfaces with other components. You will identify a site or location for the
implemented design and consider how it will be constructed or fabricated. Preliminary
drawings and a preliminary bill of materials which may include a components list identifying if
parts are standard and can be purchased off the shelf or need to be custom made.

7 Testing
This section allows you to discuss any testing or prototyping that occurred. What tests did
you do what did they tell you and how did you incorporate the findings into enhancing your
design. You may need to show several iterations of your design and this might be compiled
with your embodiment design section.

8 Verification
The verification section provides details on the work you have completed to check that your
preliminary design is still compliant with your design requirements. This section should be
based around your ‘statement of compliance’, a template for this section has been provided.
It is suggested that you include your main statement of compliance in the main body of your
report with any associated information.

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Table 1: Statement of Compliance

Constraint Compliant Evidence

Constraint A Yes / No

Constraint B Yes / No

Constraint C Yes / No

Constraint D Yes / No

Constraint E Yes / No

9 Next Steps
With your design now verified what is your final recommendation to your client. Justification
for the suggested recommendation should be given. What steps or work will EWB need to
take to progress your design? This might be the need to check with a suitably qualified
professional. This section might include an implementation plan, or suggestions on what
certain elements could look like. For example, training instructions, or supplementary
material to the design itself.

Any additional calculations or work that you have completed, for example an economic
assessment, social impact, local material utilization or an environmental impact assessment
can be included here. These documents will give your client a head start when they look at
your document.

10 Risk Assessment
Provide your risk assessment of the implementation of the final design, using quantified risk
management to identify difficulties that may be encountered, risk scores (using likelihood
and consequence techniques) and risk mitigation (minimisation) strategies.

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11 Conclusion
A description of the key messages from the report, ensure it is clear what it all means and
reflect on if the problem has been solved. No new propositions should be included in the
conclusions. You can have your team recommendations in this section.

Groupwork Contribution Table

This section is the first part of your End Matter. You should include a groupwork contribution
table. This table should indicate the contribution of each Design Team member.

Section Person(s) responsible for writing Person(s) responsible for

(add, remove and and percentage checking / reviewing

rename sections (e.g. Person A 70% Person B 20% Person (who, other than the author, reviewed this
as needed) C 10% OR All members contributed section)
equally)

Introduction

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

Conclusion

Appendix

Detailed WBS and Gantt chart should be discussed here to demonstrate your planning
capability and teamwork skills. You can compare your plan in the initial stage of the project
to the reality that happened. How does this impact your plan for the implementation stage of
the project?

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Team Reflection
Your team must provide the team reflection in this section. You should write in the first
person, e.g., “We”.

References
A list of references to materials that that have been cited in the main body of the report. The
references should be presented in the IEEE style. Using EndNote or Mendeley will
automatically enter the references in the correct format. No bare URLs find out the correct
referencing style for websites if you reference them.

Appendices
Any supplementary material which may support the report but would clutter or detract from
the narrative of the main report. This may be detailed technical information useful for a
technical expert reading the report, or a set of calculations to which the answer is referred in
the main body, or code for an app etc. Each Appendix should separated, e.g. Appendix 1:
Additional screening calculations, Appendix 2 – Additional Preliminary Design etc.