1. Team Email assignment;
Homework
Team assignment;
Develop the “Body of Facts” (all the information that you currently know about your project).
What are the key assumptions that you are making at the beginning of the project?
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2. Homework assignment continued
Product Description
Primary Market or Use
Key technology or features
Describe the intended user
Critical Assumptions
Stakeholders
Describe the “product” that you expect to complete by the end of the semester.
What is the intended use, and are there other products with similar characteristics?
What is unique about this product? Why would someone choose to use this product. What are the other competitive offerings?
Who is the targeted user? How big is the intended market. Where on the Kano chart would this product exist?
What assumptions could radically alter the current strategy? And Why?
What other companies, groups, or individuals will be impacted by the success or failure of this product development?
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3. Lecture 5 Product specifications.
Intro. We discussed the need for establishing customer needs to direct the investigation of the key features of the product under development. This picture shows two different types of toasters. The old one on the left sits on top of a gas burner and has two pieces of bread on both sides. I ask the class “what customer needs would influence the creation of the product on the left”. The obvious answer is a location that didn’t have electricity. This is an attempt to get the student to think creatively about the possible solutions.
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4. Concept Development Phase
System-Level
Design
Detail
Design
Testing and
Refinement
Production
Ramp-up
Mission
Statement
Development
Plan
Test
Product
Concept
Set
Final
Specs
Plan
Downstream
Development
Identify
Customer
Needs
Establish
Target
Specs
Generate
Product
Concepts
Select a
Product
Concept
Perform Economic Analysis
Benchmark Competitive Products
Build and Test Models and Prototypes
This is the overall process diagram for the entire development process. We have completed the customer needs section and are now focusing on establishing the initial product specifications based on the customer needs.
Concept Development
Exhibit 3 Chapter 5 Ulrich & Eppinger
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5. To name or mention exactly and clearly. How do you make statements
Specify:
To name or mention exactly
and clearly.
How do you make statements
Exact and Clear??
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6. Needs and Specifications
Customer Needs describe What the end product or service does for the user. They are expressed in the “language of the customer”. The “product does (something)”
Product Specifications allow quantification of the customer needs. Specifications are expressed in the language of engineering; metrics and values.
The Product Metrics describe the measures used to determine IF the product meets the required needs.
The Value is the actual numeric specification that the designers use to determine when the product meets the customer requirements.
This slide shows the relationship between the customer need and the specification. Customer needs are usually expressed in general terms. It is up to the design team to turn those general terms, “the product does ___________”, into measurable metrics and values that allow the team to assess how when and how well the customer need is met. The diagram at the bottom is designed to illustrate that the process of arriving at the specifications and developing concept solutions to meet the specs is an iterative process with several attempts to arrive at a successful conclusion.
What
Metrics/
Values IF
yes no
Successful
Product
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7. Example: Specialized mountain bike design.
Customer need: The Suspension enables high-speed descents on bumpy roads.
Product Metrics:
Attenuation from dropout to handlebar at 10 Hz.
Maximum value from the Monster (suspension test by Mountain Bike Magazine.)
Minimum descent time on test track.
Note: the metric does not yet have an actual value assigned at this point. Why not?
Product Specifications usually require a preliminary product definition.
This is take from the text. This is a real case where they use the design of a front suspension for a mountain bike. After analyzing some customer inputs, the company determined that this interpreted need was a high priority for the suspension.
Given the need, they developed three metrics that could be used to determine if their design would meet the customer requirement.
I emphasize that at this point in the process it is not necessary to have an actual value because you are just looking for possible ways of meeting customer needs.
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8. Importance of Clear Specifications
Product Specifications are the “blue prints” of a project. They will guide the project throughout the development.
Developing product specifications is a two step process.
Step 1 establish target specs to help channel the thinking during the product concept generation process. (Usually requires making assumptions as to what the final product configuration will be.)
Step 2 is the refinement of the specifications once the team has picked a product concept and is ready to go into system level design. Completed after concept selection.
I use a blueprint analogy because most kids are somewhat familiar with buildings and construction and have seen a blueprint. I explain that their product specs are really the blueprint for their design. The specs tell them when they have met the needs of the customer.
I further emphasize the iterative nature of the process explaining that most design efforts don’t arrive at final specs until towards the end of the development process when most of the surprises have been uncovered.
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9. Process for Establishing Target Specifications
Prepare the list of Metrics based on your customer needs or expected outcomes.
Establish what “best in class” products would require. Collect competitive benchmarks if available.
Decide where your solution will be “best in Class”. How are you going to win?
Set the target values for each metric
Reflect on the results
This is just the overview of the process that is covered in detail on the next few slides.
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10. Customer Need Statements Interpretation of Needs
The process of developing product specifications begins with your completed matrix of interpreted customer needs. Again note that there are no values. #
Customer Need Statements
Interpretation of Needs
Imp. 1
Can win
Robot can score more goals than opponent 4 2
Can control the ball while moving
Robot can maintain possession of the ball while moving 3
Want a simple design
Robot has simple design so as to facilitate functionality void of problems
Can block shots
Robot positions itself between its goal and the ball to prevent a goal 5
Robot is able to score from anywhere on the field
Robot is able to shoot the ball at different angles so as to score 6
Able to determine position of ball and opponent
Robot is able to determine the position of the ball and its opponent
This slide shows that the beginning of the development of product metrics is the interpreted customer needs. This example was taken from one of the robot soccer teams a few years ago. The customer need statement reflect the general statements of the team members. The interpreted need is how the design team determined that the need statement could be met. And the importance column reflects the relative ranking of the needs. In this case they felt all these needs were very important 4 of 4.
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11. Product Specs are based on Customer Needs
The Customer expresses the need in terms of What the product must do.
The robot can quickly change alignment without forward motion.
The Product Specification sets metrics and values that allow quantification of the user need.
The Robot can rotate 360 degrees in 2 secs without forward motion .
This takes the data from the last slide and reviews it. Customer need is in terms of what the product must do, and the spec is a measure to determine if the design meets the need.
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12. A Product Spec for each Need
Prioritize the Needs. It is important to identify the critical factors for success and make sure you have a way of
quantifying these factors.
Develop a measure and value for each need
Some needs may have more than one specification.
This is pretty self explanatory. We prioritize the needs so that we ensure that those that are critical to the success of the product are going to be met. The last statement is important to emphasize that every critical need must have a least one specification to ensure we have achieved success. If you don’t have a measure for the need, there is no way to insure that it is satisfactory.
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13. Customer Need Statements Interpretation of Needs
Example of a customer needs table #
Customer Need Statements
Interpretation of Needs
Imp. 1
Can win
Robot can score more goals than opponent 4 2
Can control the ball while moving
Robot can maintain possession of the ball while moving 3
Want a simple design
Robot has simple design so as to facilitate functionality void of problems
Can block shots
Robot positions itself between its goal and the ball to prevent a goal 5
Robot is able to score from anywhere on the field
Robot is able to shoot the ball at different angles so as to score 6
Able to determine position of ball and opponent
Robot is able to determine the position of the ball and its opponent
This is a summary slide of the data show previously, highlighting the two interpreted needs from that table. The next slide shows these two needs and the specs associated with them.
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14. Example of a Product Specification table
Metric #
Need #
Metric
Units
Marginal
Value
Ideal 1
Goals scored minus conceded goals
Goals
> 0
> 2 2
Distance from ball to robot cm
<10
<2 3
Time from possession of ball s
>10
>=30 4
Radius of circle made while in possession of ball at top speed
>=50
>=10 5
Number of motors, circuits, batteries, moving parts
parts
<=12
<=6 6
Number of lines of code
lines
3000
1500 7
Percentage of blocked shots given random speed and location of ball and robot %
>=90 8
Percentage of goals given random location of shot and opponent
>=70
>=95 9
Maximum difference between calculated ball position and actual ball position
<=5
<1 10
Maximum difference between calculated opponent position and actual opponent position
This is an example of what each team will complete for their projects. We have carried the metric from the previous customer needs table into this format, and now add the units, values and priority of the needs. This also illustrates that the same customer need, “robot can maintain possession of the ball” can have several metrics associated with it. Here we have three ways of measuring the success of maintaining possession. Same goes for the need in the blue, where there are two metrics.
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15. Types of Metrics
Some metrics are dependent, some are independent variables
Independent metrics can be set by the designer, “number of motors”, “amount of battery time required”
Dependent metrics are the result of other design decisions, “mass of robot”, “size of the battery”
- It is important to identify the dependent variables to insure the other design choices don’t compromise the customer needs.
This is just some information showing that metrics can be either independent, and set arbitrarily by the team, or dependent on other metrics derived from other design decisions. The example is that the mass of the robot is a metric, but it is dependent on the design decisions, such as number of motors, length of competition (battery life), etc.
I ask the teams for examples of independent and dependent metrics for their own projects just to see if they are following the process.
Examples for your project?
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16. Values of Metrics At least X-- set a minimum amount,
At most X -- set a maximum,
Between X and Y -- set a range,
4. Exactly X -- set a fixed value,
5. Discrete values – parts are only available in discrete increments,
Are all needs quantifiable?
I usually hit this slide very lightly, since it just describes that the values can take several different forms. Some have to be exact, and most are either minimums or maximums. The last question helps the students see that some the need are hard to quantify, such as appearance, color, ease of use.
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17. What department in most companies is most concerned with Product Specifications?
The QA department.
What does QA stand for?
Quality Assurance
What does a QA department do?
Works with design engineers to develop comprehensive specifications for all critical customer requirements.
Develops test procedures to allow designers to test their designs against the specifications.
Test products and processes to ensure the end product complies with those design specifications.
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18. Tools for transforming Needs into Specifications
Needs-Metrics Tables
Quality Function Deployment- QFD
Competitive Benchmarking
Analyze Data
vs. Requirements
Correlate Requirements
with Measures
measure
requirements
This slides just shows that there are several methods companies use to capture this process for communication purposes. The Needs-Metric table is what we have shown in the lecture. The QFD in the matrix form shown in blue, and competitive benchmarking is a common tool used to set best in class measures for specifications.
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19. Needs-Metrics Tables Metric # Need # Metric Units ECEn 490 -Win 2017 1
Goals scored minus conceded goals
Goals 2
Distance from ball to robot cm 3
Time from possession of ball s 4
Radius of circle made while in possession of ball at top speed 5
Number of motors, circuits, batteries, moving parts
parts 6
Number of lines of code
lines 7
Percentage of blocked shots given random speed and location of ball and robot % 8
Percentage of goals given random location of shot and opponent 9
Maximum difference between calculated ball position and actual ball position 10
Maximum difference between calculated opponent position and actual opponent position 11
Maximum percentage error between calculated ball position and actual ball position per second
%/s 12
Average percentage error between calculated opponent position and actual opponent position per second 13
8, 18
Acceleration
m/s^2 14
9, 18
Mx speed
m/s 15
10,25,27
Time elapsed from a change in the environment to a change in the robot's action 16
Whether or not a victory dance is implemented at the right time (ie after robot scores)
N/A
This is a review slide showing the Needs Metric table..
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20. Quality Function Deployment- QFD, or a Needs-Metrics Matrix1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Goals scored minus conceded goals
Distance from ball to robot
Time from possession of ball
Radius of circle while in possession of ball
Number of motors, batteries, moving parts
Number of lines of code
Percentage of blocked shots given random speed
Percentage of goals w/random location of shots
Metrics
Needs 1
Robot can score more goals than opponent 2
Maintain possession of the ball while moving 3
simple design with functionality w/o problems 4
positions itself between its goal and the ball 5
able to score from anywhere on the field 
This is an example of a QFD format of the same data
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21. Competitive Benchmarking
Evaluate the competition
Metric #
Need
Units
Marginal
Value
Ideal 1
Goals scored minus conceded goals
Goals
> 0
> 2 2
Distance from ball to robot cm
<10
<2 3
Time from possession of ball s
>10
>=30 4
Radius of circle made while in possession of ball at top speed
>=50
>=10 5
Number of motors, circuits, batteries, moving parts
parts
<=12
<=6 6
Number of lines of code
lines
3000
1500 7
Percentage of blocked shots given random speed and location of ball and robot %
>=90 8
Percentage of goals given random location of shot and opponent
>=70
>=95 9
Maximum difference between calculated ball position and actual ball position
<=5
<1 10
Maximum difference between calculated opponent position and actual opponent position
Comp 1 2 3 4 -2
2.3 8 15 13 9 35 5 27 12 24
3000
2450
4000
1400 60 50 65 70 55 80
1.5
This is a competitive benchmarking table from the text.
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22. Generate 5 specifications based on your customer or user needs.
Homework assignment
Generate 5 specifications based on your customer or user needs.
Work on the Preliminary Functional Specifications Document (PFSD) for your senior project. You can use the template illustrated in Example FSD on the website, or a similar format to capture the relationship between your customer needs and the product specs you will need meet in your design.
Have the document available on your management site and ed to Prof. Clifford by next Tuesday, Jan 31
Read Chapter 6 Concept Generation or the class notes on the website.
This is the homework assignment that is due on Thursday. If the team doesn’t meet again between the time you meet and the next class, they are free to turn it in before next Tuesday January 27th.
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23. The Four sections of the FSD
Project Description and background: What is the project, and what is expected to be accomplished.
Project Requirements: Who is the customer, and what are the interpreted needs and requirements including their relative importance. (customer needs table)
Product Specifications: The measurable engineering characteristics (metrics) and target values for the product.
Linking of the Project Requirements and Product Specifications: The analysis of the specifications to insure that critical program and customer requirements are being met. (table showing needs, specs, and values)
This is a summary of the requirements for the first major written assignment, the Functional Specifications Document. A more detailed explanation can be found on the class website. There are some examples on the website as well.
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