Engineering Design: Module 3: Problem Definition and Need Identification

Engineering Design
Module 3: Problem Definition and Need

Identification
BITS Pilani
Pilani | Dubai | Goa | Hyderabad
Dr. Nitin Kotkunde
C o n tent
• Introduction
• Identifying customer needs
• Customer requirements
• Establishing the engineering characteristics
• Quality function deployment
• Product design specification
• Summary
ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 2 BITS-Pilani
Pr o d uct D e ve l opment Pr o ce ss

In tr o duction
• Design is a complex activity.
• It required intense focus at the beginning.
• Clear understanding of problem.

Id e n ti fying C u s to mer N e e ds
• Increasing worldwide competitiveness
• Who are my customers?
• What does the customer want? How can the product satisfy the customers while
generating a profit?
• “One that purchases a product or service”
• Total Quality Management: “anyone who receives or uses what an individual or

organization provides.”

Pr e l i minary R e s earch o n C u sto mer s
N e e ds
• Designers focus on needs that are unmet in the marketplace
• Products that are similar to the proposed product
• Historical ways of meeting the need and technological approaches for similar
products.
• Use of own experience and research to date.
• Start with our own team and internal customers.

BITS Pilani
Module 3.2: Gathering Information from

Customers
Ga th eri ng In fo rmation fr o m C u stomers

C u s tomer Su r ve y Exa m p le

Eva l u ati ng C u s to mer Su r ve ys
• Average score using 1-5 scale.
• Alternatively, number of times a feature or attribute of a design is mentioned in

the survey and divide by the total number of customers surveyed.

C l a s si fyi ng C u s to mer R e q uirements
• Challenges in knowing the customers’ voice:
– Customer must understand the product that is being designed.
– Difficult situation in rapid technology change.
– Typical problem is customer will always discuss about the failings of the
product. Experience about the product usage will be never discuss easily
– Kano recognized four level of customer requirements
– (1) Expecters (2) Spoken (3) Unspoken (4) Exciters

Ka n o’ s M o d el

Ka n o’ s M o d el: Exa m p l e
• Product requirements of skis



• Indifferent category (I): Customer does not care whether it is present or not. He or
she is, however, not willing to spend more on this feature.
• Questionable category (Q): Questionable scores signify that the question was
phrased incorrectly, or that the person interviewed misunderstood the question or
crossed out a wrong answer by mistake.
• Reverse Category (R): this product feature is not only not wanted by the
customer but he even expects the reverse.

Ka n o M o d el
• Evaluation rule M>O>A>I
• Customer satisfaction coefficient (CS coefficient):
𝑨+𝑶 𝑶+𝑴
Extent of Satisfaction= Extent of dissatisfaction=
𝑨+𝑶+𝑴+𝑰 (𝑨+𝑶+𝑴+𝑰)×(−𝟏)


Ad va n tages o f Ka n o’s M e thod
• Priorities customer requirements for product development.
• Product requirements are better understood.
• Kano’s method provides valuable help in trade-off situations in the product
development stage.
• Discovering and fulfilling attractive requirements creates a wide range of
possibilities for differentiation.

Exa m p le:

Es ta b li shi ng th e En g i neering C h a racter isti cs
Engineering Characteristics
Design Parameters
Design Variable
Constraints

Be n c hmark ing
• Sun Tzu, Chinese warrior in 500 BC: “Know your enemy before to know yourself”
• Xerox’s worry of 1979 about Canon copier!
• Benchmarking is the key
• What is benchmarking?
• Why it is necessary?
• Identifying intra-company best practices

Be n c hmark ing
• The more common sources of resistance to benchmarking:
– Fear of being perceived as copiers
– Fear of yielding competitive advantages if information is traded or shared
– Arrogance
– Impatience

C o m petitive Pe r for mance Be n chmarki ng
Determine features, functions, and any other factors that are the
most important to end user satisfaction.
Determine features and functions that are important to the technical
success of the product.
Determine the functions that markedly increase the costs of the
product.
Determine the features and functions that differentiate the product
from its competitors.
Determine which functions have the greatest potential for
improvement.
Establish metrics by which the most important functions or features
can be quantified and evaluated.
Evaluate the product and its competing products using performance
testing.
Generate a benchmarking report summarizing all information learned
about the product, data collected, and conclusions about competitors.

BITS Pilani
Module 3.6: Determining Engineering

Characteristics
D e te rmini ng En g ineer ing C h a racteri stics
Parameter
2
Design
Parameters
variables
Parameter Customer Parameter

1 Requirements 3
Constrain
Parameter
4
Prioritize of engineering characteristics
Qu a l ity F u n c tion D e p loyment
• Quality function deployment (QFD) is a planning and team problem-solving tool.

H o u se o f Qu a l ity

M i n i mal H OQ T e m pl ate

H o u se o f Qu a l ity: Exa m p l e C D ca se

H o u se o f Qu a l ity: Exa m p l e C a m er a
What the
customer
wants








Pr o d uct D e s i gn Sp e cification
• Engineering design tasks are compiled in the form of a set of product design
specification (PDS).
• The PDS is the basic control and reference document for the design and
manufacture of the product.
• Whether the product development venture is a good investment for the company,
and to decide what time to market and level of resources are required.
• The resulting documentation is typically called a new product marketing report. This
report can range in size and scope from a one-page memorandum describing a
simple product change to a business plan of several hundred pages.

T e m plate fo r Pr o d uct D e si gn Sp e cification
• Product Identification • Physical Description

– Product name – Design variable
– Basic functions of the product – Constraints
– Special features of the product

• Financial Requirements
– Key performance targets
– What are the assumptions
– Service environment
– What are the corporate criteria on profitability
– User training required
– Pricing policy over life cycle
• Key project deadline – Warranty policy
– Time to complete project – Expected financial performance
– Fixed project deadline – Level of capital investment required

T e m plate fo r Pr o d uct D e si gn Sp e cification
• Life cycle target • Social, Political and Legal requirements

– Target for the performance of the product – Government agencies, societies and regulation board
– Useful life and shelf life – Safety and environmental regulations
– Cost of installation and operation – Standards
– Maintenance schedule and location – Safety and product liability
– Reliability – Intellectual property
– End-of-life strategy – Patent filing procedure
• Manufacturing Specifications
– Manufacturing requirements
– External suppliers identification and
strategy

Su m m ary
• Engineering characteristics are discovered through benchmarking competing
products, performing reverse engineering on similar products, and technical
research.
• The TQM tool called Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a well-defined process
that will lead a design team in translating the important customer needs into critical-
to-quality engineering characteristics.
• The House of Quality (HOQ) is the first step in QFD and is the most used in the
product development process.
• The product design process results in a document called the Product Design
Specification (PDS).
C o n tent: T e a m Be h a vi or
• Introduction
• Effective team members
• Team roles and team dynamics
• Effective team meeting
• Problems with teams
• Problem solving tools
• Time management, planning and scheduling
• Summary
Course Code – E N G IN E E RIN G D E S IG N 53 BITS-Pilani

Ob j e cti ves
• To provide time-tested tips and advice for becoming an effective team member
• To introduce you to a set of problem-solving tools that you will find useful in
carrying out your design project, as well as being useful in your everyday life.
• To emphasize the importance of project planning to success in design, and to
provide you with some ideas of how to increase your skill in this activity.

Effe c ti ve T e a m M e m ber

Su g ges ted Gu i d el ines fo r a n Effe cti ve T e a m
• As open as possible but will honor the right of privacy.
• Information remain confidential.
• Respect differences between individuals.
• Respect the ideas of others.
• Supportive rather than judgmental.
• Give feedback directly and openly, in a timely fashion.
• Diligent in attending team meetings.
• Use time wisely.
• Keep focus on team goals, avoiding sidetracking, personality conflicts, and hidden
agendas. Course Code – E N G IN E E RIN G D E S IG N 56 BITS-Pilani
Effe c ti ve T e a m M e e tings

Pr o b lem w i th T e a ms
Dominant
Personality
Lack of Over
respect Talkative
Problems
with
teams
Overly Does not

Critical listen

Pr o b lem -s olvi ng T o o ls
• Brainstorming
Problem Definition • Affinity diagram
• Pareto chart
• Gathering data
Cause Finding • Analyzing data
• Search for root causes
Solution Finding and • Brainstorming

• How-how diagram
Implementation • Concept selection

Pr o b lem D e fi ni tion T o o ls
Brainstorming Session Pareto Diagram

Affinity chart

C a u se F i n d ing
• Gathering Data:
Focus Group
Interviews Survey

• Analyzing data:
Check sheets Histogram Flowchart

• Search for root causes:
Interrelationship digraph
Why Why
Cause andDiagram
Effect Diagram
• Solution finding and implementation :
How How Diagram Force field

Concept analysis
selection

T i m e M a n agement
• Find a place for everything
• Schedule your work
• Stay current with the little stuff
• Learn to say no
• Find the sweet spot and use it
Planning and scheduling

T o o l s u s e d fo r Pl a n ning a n d Sch e dul ing
Work Breakdown Structure:

Gantt Chart:

Critical Path Method (CPM):

Steps:
• Determine activities that need to be accomplished
• Determine precedence relationships and completion times
• Construct network diagram
• Determine the critical path
• Determine early start and late start schedules

C r i ti cal Pa th M e th od ( C PM )
• An activity carries the arrow symbol, . This represent a task or subproject that uses
time or resources.
• A node (an event), denoted by a circle , marks the start and completion of an activity,
which contain a number that helps to identify its location. For example activity A can be
drawn as:
A
1 2
3 days
• This means activity A starts at node 1 and finishes at node 2 and it will takes three days

D e te rmini ng th e C r i ti cal Pa th
• Step 1: Make a forward pass through the network as follows: For each activity i
beginning at the Start node, compute:
– Earliest Start Time (ES) = the maximum of the earliest finish times of all activities
immediately preceding activity i. (This is 0 for an activity with no predecessors.). This is
the earliest time an activity can begin without violation of immediate predecessor
requirements.
– Earliest Finish Time (EF) = (Earliest Start Time) + (Time to complete activity i). This
represent the earliest time at which an activity can end.
The project completion time is the maximum of the Earliest Finish Times at the
Finish node.
• Step 2: Make a backwards pass through the network as follows: Move

sequentially backwards from the Finish node to the Start node. At a given node,
j, consider all activities ending at node j. For each of these activities, (i,j),
compute:
– Latest Finish Time (LF) = the minimum of the latest start times beginning at node j.
(For node N, this is the project completion time.). This is the latest time an activity can
end without delaying the entire project.
– Latest Start Time (LS) = (Latest Finish Time) - (Time to complete activity (i,j)). This is
the latest time an activity can begin without delaying the entire project.

• Step 3: Calculate the slack time for each activity by:
Slack = (Latest Start) - (Earliest Start), or
= (Latest Finish) - (Earliest Finish).
A critical path is a path of activities, from the Start node to the Finish node, with 0
slack times.

Exa m p le
• Consider the following project:
Activity Predecessor time (days)
A -- 6
B -- 4
C A 3
D A 5
E A 1
F B,C 4
G B,C 2
H E,F 6
I E,F 5
J D,H 3
K G,I 5

Exa m p le
• Earliest/Latest Times
Activity time ES EF LS LF Slack
A 6 0 6 0 6 0 *critical
B 4 0 4 5 9 5
C 3 6 9 6 9 0*
D 5 6 11 15 20 9
E 1 6 7 12 13 6
F 4 9 13 9 13 0*
G 2 9 11 16 18 7
H 6 13 19 14 20 1
I 5 13 18 13 18 0*
J 3 19 22 20 23 1
K 5 18 23 18 23 0*
– The estimated project completion time is the Max EF at node 7 = 23.

C o n tent
• The information challenges
• Types of design information
• Sources of design information
• Professional societies and trade association
• Codes and standards
• Patents and other intellectual properties
• Company centered information

In tr o duction

T h e In fo r mation C h a llenges

So u r ces o f In fo r mation

L i b rar y So u r ces o f In fo r mation
Technical dictionaries
Technical encyclopedias
Handbooks
Textbooks and monographs
Indexing and abstracting services
Technical reports
Patents
Suppliers catalogs and brochures and
other trade literature

Go ve r nment So u rc es o f In fo r mati on
Reports prepared
under contract by Government
Government-
industrial and Printing Offi ce
sponsored reports
university R&D (GPO)
organizations

In fo r mati on fr o m th e In te r net
• Suppose we want to find responses on

the topic proportional control
(11,800,000 responses).
• “proportional control.” (134,000
responses).
• “proportional control”-temperature ,
(responses are reduced to 76,300).

Pr o fe ss ional So c i e ti es a n d T r a de
As s o c iati ons

C o d es a n d Sta n dards
• A standard can be defined as a set of technical definitions and guidelines-“how to"
instructions for designers and manufacturers.
• They serve as a common language, defining quality and establishing safety criteria.
• Build confidence about quality in users.
• Examples: ASTM standard, ISO standard
• A code is a standard that has been adopted by one or more governmental bodies
and has the force of law, or when it has been incorporated into a business contract
• Exemples- ASME Boiler and Pressure vessel Code

Sp e c ifi cations
• A Specification is description of the design and materials used to make something.
• They are set of instructions and/or requirements over and above requirements
given in Code & Standard.
• Must meet requirements
• Examples- Company Provided specification, Product specification

Pa te nts a n d o th e r In te l lectual Pr o p erty
• Grant of a property right to the inventor.
• Issued by the Patent and Trademark Office
• Term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent
was filed in the United States.
• US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.
• Patentability: "any person who invents any new and useful process, machine,
manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof“.
• Conditions of Patentability:
– Utility
– Novelty

Pa te nts a n d o th e r In te l lectual Pr o p erty
Example:

T r a demark s
• Used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark
• Not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same
goods or services under a clearly different mark
• May be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office

• Trademark rights established by:
– First to use the "mark"
– First to file application with PTO

C o p yr ights
• Form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship"
• Including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both
published and unpublished
• Gives author and authorized other exclusive rights
• Author and Agent have exclusive rights to:

– Reproduce the copyrighted work
– Prepare derivative works
– Distribute copies or phono records of the copyrighted work,
– Perform the copyrighted work publicly
– Display the copyrighted work publicly

Sc o p e o f C o p y ri ght Pr o te ction
• Literary works
• Musical works
– Including lyrics
• Dramatic works
– Including music
• MP-3 Music (Napster)
• Choreography
• Motion pictures
• Pictorial, graphic, sculptoral works
• Sound recordings
• Architectural works
Sc o p e o f C o p y ri ght Pr o te ction
• Must be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression" to be protected.
• Not protected:
– Unrecorded choreography
– Slogans, short names, titles, familiar symbols
– Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, principles
– Information that is "common property: Calendars, rulers, tape measures, public

lists

T r a de Se c r e t
• A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern,

commercial method, or compilation of information not generally known or
reasonably ascertainable by others by which a business can obtain an economic
advantage over competitors or customers.

C o m pany - centered In fo rmation
• Product specifications • Marketing data on previous products
• Concept designs for previous products • Sales data on previous products
• Test data on previous products • Warranty reports on previous products
• Bill of materials on previous products • Manufacturing data
• Cost data on previous projects • Design guides prepared for new employees
• Reports on previous design projects • Company standards

THANK YOU

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Engineering Design

Module 3: Problem Definition and Need

• Identifying customer needs

• Establishing the engineering characteristics

• Quality function deployment

• Product design specification

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 4 BITS-Pilani

• Design is a complex activity.

• It required intense focus at the beginning.

• Clear understanding of problem.

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 5 BITS-Pilani

• Increasing worldwide competitiveness

• Who are my customers?

• “One that purchases a product or service”

• Total Quality Management: “anyone who receives or uses what an individual or

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 6 BITS-Pilani

• Designers focus on needs that are unmet in the marketplace

• Products that are similar to the proposed product

• Use of own experience and research to date.

• Start with our own team and internal customers.

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 7 BITS-Pilani

Module 3.2: Gathering Information from

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 9 BITS-Pilani

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 11 BITS-Pilani

• Average score using 1-5 scale.

• Alternatively, number of times a feature or attribute of a design is mentioned in

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 12 BITS-Pilani

• Challenges in knowing the customers’ voice:

– Customer must understand the product that is being designed.

– Difficult situation in rapid technology change.

– Kano recognized four level of customer requirements

– (1) Expecters (2) Spoken (3) Unspoken (4) Exciters

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 19 BITS-Pilani

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 20 BITS-Pilani

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 21 BITS-Pilani

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 22 BITS-Pilani

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 23 BITS-Pilani

• Evaluation rule M>O>A>I

• Customer satisfaction coefficient (CS coefficient):

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 24 BITS-Pilani

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 25 BITS-Pilani

• Priorities customer requirements for product development.

• Product requirements are better understood.

• Kano’s method provides valuable help in trade-off situations in the product

• Discovering and fulfilling attractive requirements creates a wide range of

possibilities for differentiation.

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 26 BITS-Pilani

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 27 BITS-Pilani

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 29 BITS-Pilani

• Xerox’s worry of 1979 about Canon copier!

• Benchmarking is the key

• Identifying intra-company best practices

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 30 BITS-Pilani

• The more common sources of resistance to benchmarking:

– Fear of being perceived as copiers

– Fear of yielding competitive advantages if information is traded or shared

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 31 BITS-Pilani

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 32 BITS-Pilani

Module 3.6: Determining Engineering

Parameter Customer Parameter

• Quality function deployment (QFD) is a planning and team problem-solving tool.

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 35 BITS-Pilani

ETZC 413 – E N G IN E ERIN G D E S IG N 36 BITS-Pilani