Session 6 Page 11 ECE361 Engineering Practice Brainstorming, Trades and the Design Process

Session 6 Page 22 Product Design Specifications

Session 6 Page 33 Conceptual Design The PDS establishes what the system must do, but the implementation details need to be established separately The conceptual design process is where this takes place, through the: Generation of alternative solutions, and the Evaluation of alternatives to choose the “best” solution

Session 6 Page 44 Design Process Assures Design will meet Requirements Requirements Specification BrainstormingTrades Preliminary Design Requirements vs. Capabilities Detailed Design Review ImplementationTestingReporting Stage 1 Stage 1 – Problem Definition & Potential Solutions Stage 2 Stage 2 – Design Stage 3 Stage 3 – Verification Deliver = $$$ This process is part of what we call Systems Engineering

Session 6 Page 55 Generating & Evaluating Ideas Individuals generate the most and best concepts (though often the stimulation for the ideas comes from others) Groups are better at generating selection criteria Groups are also better at evaluating concepts and enhancing them

Session 6 Page 66 Ideation Process I The environment must be comfortable, light and airy, plenty of wall space, suitable for team members to work in comfort with access to information sources Provide paper, white boards, post-its, and note cards for presenting and preserving ideas Communication of ideas in all forms – textual, verbal, diagrammatic, and graphical presentation of ideas is of great importance

Session 6 Page 77 Ideation Process II Absolutely no judgment of a concept until the group has run out of ideas –No idea is discarded at this stage –Everyone participates equally Selection process of concepts should not inhibit creativity of new ideas that might emerge Generation of evaluation criteria from the PDS elements is a group activity Group evaluates each idea using evaluation criteria –Absolutely no “gut feeling” decision making; past experiences are just as likely to be wrong as right in new situations

Session 6 Page 88 Ideation Techniques Analogy – A shift register transports values as in a bucket brigade Brainstorming – Use a brick for a door stop. Inversion – Change roles, move the print head rather than the paper Attribute Listing – Size, weight, strength, color, material, shape Checklist – Adapt, modify, magnify, minimize, substitute, rearrange, reverse, combine Affinity Process – See charts below

Session 6 Page 99 The Affinity Process Why? –Breakthrough in traditional concepts is needed –Support for solution is essential for implementation Schedule –Ideation: 10 minutes –Grouping: 10 minutes –Headers: 5 minutes –Wrap-up: 5 minutes

Session 6 Page 1010 Team Activity Generate multiple approaches to locomotion for project during competition Team recorder issues minutes of team deliberations ASAP after class BrainstormingTrades

Session 6 Page 1111 Ideation: 10 minutes Generate and Record Ideas Write one idea on each Post-It Large number of ideas in short time Short phrases or pictures Each member generates at least 10 ideas

Session 6 Page 1212 Affinity Diagram - Grouping: 10 minutes Arrange ideas that seem related Try for 6-10 groupings - naturally Use your gut ADD IDEAS THAT ARE MISSING!!! Handling disagreements

Session 6 Page 1313 Affinity Diagram - Header Cards: 5 minutes Create a Header Post-It™ State in 3-5 words the “essence” of the grouping Identify the common threads

Session 6 Page 1414 Wrap-up (5 minutes) Complete? Logical? EXCITING?

Session 6 Page 1515 Evaluation Techniques (Trades) The team decides upon the evaluation criteria (derived from the PDS) by which the ideas are to be compared BEFORE making any judgment or evaluation of any concept. The criteria are to evaluate, not optimize the solution.

Session 6 Page 1616 Pugh Matrix Method I Concepts along horizontal axis, evaluation criteria along vertical axis Ensure comparisons are at the same level or on the same basis Choose a reference concept (datum or baseline); e.g. any prior solution, or the one the group intuitively thinks is the “best” Enter a PLUS (+) if a concept is better than the datum; enter a MINUS (-) if a concept is worse than the datum; enter an S if a concept is the same as the datum

Session 6 Page 1717 Pugh Matrix Method II Total the PLUSes and MINUSes for each concept and obtain the algebraic sum for each concept. Carefully look at the pattern of MINUSes; try to generate improvements to the concept without eroding the PLUSes. If a number of strong concepts do not emerge, then usually the criteria are –Ambiguous or subject to different interpretations –The concepts are not distinct but have many similarities –Subsets of other concepts. When one concept is strongest, re-run the matrix using it as the datum to validate it as the strongest.

Session 6 Page 1818 Pugh Matrix

Session 6 Page 1919 ECE 361 Assignments TEAM ASSIGNMENT - Prepare and circulate minutes from the team locomotion brainstorming session Due ASAP after class today, one per team, circulated to all team members and faculty