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C H

1A P T E R

Introduction to the Mechanical

Design Process

KEY QUESTIONS
■ What are the stages of a product’s life cycle?
■ What are the important phases of the design stage?
■ How are design problems different from analysis problems?
■ Why is it that during design, the more you know, the less design freedom you
have?
■ Why are design problems characterized by information that is uncertain,
incomplete, and conflicting?
■ What are the four basic actions of decision making?
■ What are best practices and why are they important?

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Beginning with the simple potter’s wheel and evolving to complex consumer
products and transportation systems, humans have been designing mechanical
objects for nearly 5000 years. Each of these objects is the end result of a long
and often difficult design process. This book is about that process. Regardless of
whether we are designing gearboxes, heat exchangers, satellites, or doorknobs,
certain techniques can be used during the design process to help ensure successful
results. Since this book is about the process of mechanical design, it focuses not
on the design of any one type of object but on techniques that apply to the design
of all types of mechanical objects.
If people have been designing for 5000 years and there are literally millions
of mechanical objects that work and work well, why study the design process?
The answer, simply put, is that there is a continuous need for new, cost-effective,

1
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2 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Mechanical Design Process

high-quality products. Today’s products have become so complex that most re-
quire a team of people from diverse areas of expertise to develop an idea into
hardware. The more people involved in a project, the greater is the need for
assistance in communication and structure to ensure nothing important is over-
looked and customers will be satisfied. In addition, the global marketplace has
fostered the need to develop new products at a rapid and accelerating pace. To
compete in this market, a company must be very efficient in the design of its
products. It is the process that will be studied here that determines the effi-
ciency of new product development. Finally, it has been estimated that 85%
of the problems with new products not working as they should, taking too
long to bring to market, or costing too much are the result of a poor design
process.
During design activities, ideas are developed into hardware that is usable as
a product. Whether this piece of hardware is a bookshelf or a space station, it
is the result of a process that combines people and their knowledge, tools, and
skills to develop a new creation. This task requires their time and costs money,
and if the people are good at what they do and the environment they work in
is well structured, they can do it efficiently. Further, if they are skilled, the final
product will be well liked by those who use it and work with it—the customers
will see it as a quality product. The design process, then, is the organization and
management of people and the information they develop in the evolution of a
product. Throughout the remainder of the book, the term product will be used to
describe any physical device that is being designed, whether it is a one-off fixture
used in an experiment, a device that is mass produced and sold to thousands, a
shelf to hold your books, or a Mars Rover suspension.
In simpler times, one person could design and manufacture an entire
product. Even for a large project such as the design of a ship or a bridge,
one person had sufficient knowledge of the physics, materials, and manufac-
turing processes to manage all aspects of the design and construction of the
project.
By the middle of the twentieth century, products and manufacturing processes
had become so complex that one person no longer had sufficient knowledge or
time to focus on all the aspects of the evolving product. This division of labor
forced the formalization of design process and the evolution of methods that help
each step along the way. These methods are referred to as best practices. A best
practice is a professional method that is accepted or prescribed as being most
effective. This book is really a compendium of best practices that can help you
design quality products.
The three main goals of this book are to:
1. Give you the knowledge about best practices used in industry to develop and
refine products.
2. Give you the tools to string these best practices together to develop an efficient
design process regardless of the product being developed.
3. Make you aware of new challenges and opportunities in the mechanical design
process.
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1.2 What Is the Design Process? 3

1.2 WHAT IS THE DESIGN PROCESS?

Every product has a life history that evolves through four distinct stages, shown
in Fig. 1.1.
The first stage concerns the development of the product, the focus of this book.
The second stage is the production and delivery of the product to the customer.
The third is the product’s use by the customer. And the final stage focuses on
what happens to the product after it is no longer useful. Clearly, the first stage is
the domain of the designer. But, how the product fares in all the other stages is a
direct consequence of decisions made by the designer in this first stage.
Each stage can be broken down into more detailed phases. Design has four
phases as shown in Fig. 1.2.
The four design phases are:
1. Project definition. Efficient product development hinges on choosing the
right projects to work on and planning for the most efficient use of people’s
time and of other resources.
2. Product definition. The importance of building a good definition of the prod-
uct to be developed has become one of the key points in product development.
Time spent defining what the product is to be, prior to developing concepts,
saves time and money and improves quality.
3. Conceptual design. An important part of a successful product is in generating
and evaluating new concepts. Decisions made here affect all the downstream
phases.
4. Product development. Turning a concept into a manufacturable product that
performs as it should is a major engineering challenge. This phase ends with
manufacturing specifications and release to production.

Production
Design Use End of Life
and Delivery

Figure 1.1 The stages of a product’s life.

Design

Project Product Conceptual Product

Definition Definition Design Development

Figure 1.2 The phases of product design.

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4 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Mechanical Design Process

The design process not only gives birth to a product but is also
responsible for its life and death.

When the design work is completed, the product is released for production,
and except for engineering changes, the designers have no further direct involve-
ment with it. However, these first four phases all have a great effect on what will
happen to the product and its success for the remainder of its lifetime.
The four production and delivery phases, shown in Fig 1.3, are:
1. Manufacture. Most products need unique components formed from raw
materials and thus require some manufacturing. Design decisions directly
determine the materials used and their impact on the environment during
manufacture; the manufacturing processes that can be used and the resulting
cost to make the parts; and their subsequent reuse or recycling.
2. Assembly. The ease of product assembly is a major consideration during
product design.
3. Distribution. Although distribution may not seem like a concern for the
design engineer, each product must be delivered to the customer in a safe
and cost-effective manner. Additionally, design requirements may include
the need for the product to be shipped in a container designed by marketing
or in some standard box.
4. Installation. Some products require installation before the customer can use
them. This is especially true for manufacturing equipment and building in-
dustry products. Additionally, concern for installation can also mean concern
for how customers will react to the statement, “Some assembly required.”
The goal of product development, production, and delivery is the use of the
product. The three “use” phases, shown in Fig. 1.4, are:
1. Operate. Products may have many different operating sequences that describe
their use. Consider as an example a common hammer that can be used to put

Production and Delivery

Manufacture Assembly Distribution Installation

Figure 1.3 The phases of production and delivery.

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1.2 What Is the Design Process? 5

Use

Operate in Maintain
Sequence 1 (Diagnose
Clean Test
Repair)

Operate in
Sequence N

Figure 1.4 The use phases.

in nails or take them out. Each use involves a different sequence of operations,
and all must be considered during the design of a hammer.
2. Clean. Another aspect of a product’s use is keeping it clean. This can range
from frequent need (e.g., public bathroom fixtures) to never. Every consumer
has experienced the frustration of not being able to easily clean a product.
This inability is seldom designed into the product on purpose; rather, it is
usually simply the result of not considering cleanablity during the design
process.
3. Maintain. Many of today’s products are throwaways. When it fails, you
throw it away and buy a new one. Concern for sustainability may force this to
change, to go back to being able to diagnose, where the diagnosis may require
tests, and then to repair the product. Whether a product is a throwaway or is
repairable is a function of the design of the product.
Finally, every product has a finite life and thus, end-of-life concerns, as shown
in Fig 1.5. The end-of-life phases used to not be of much concern to designers.

End of Life

Reuse or
Retirement Disassembly
Recycle

Figure 1.5 The end-of-life phases.

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6 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Mechanical Design Process

But with the increased emphasis on sustainability, the impact of design on the
environment has become increasingly clear.
The three end-of-life phases are:
1. Retirement. The final phase in a product’s life is its retirement. In past years
designers did not worry about a product beyond its use. However, during
the 1980s increased concern for the environment forced designers to be-
gin considering the entire life of their products. In the 1990s the European
Union enacted legislation that makes the original manufacturer responsible
for collecting and reusing or recycling its products when their usefulness is
finished.
2. Disassembly. Before the 1970s, consumer products could be easily disas-
sembled for repair, but now we live in a “throwaway” society, where disas-
sembly of consumer goods is difficult and often impossible. However, due to
legislation requiring us to recycle or reuse products, the need to design for
disassembling a product is returning.
3. Reuse or recycle. After a product has been disassembled, its parts can either
be reused in other products or recycled—reduced to a more basic form and
used again (e.g., metals can be melted, paper reduced to pulp again).
The phases introduced here give some idea about how important the product
design is throughout the life of a product. A majority of this book will be spent
on addressing best practices to accomplish design with an eye on all the other
concerns introduced here.

1.3 DESIGN BEST PRACTICES

This book is a compendium of product design best practices. These are activities
undertaken every day in industry that have been successful and adopted by others.
Table 1.1 itemizes techniques generally considered as best practice and discussed
in this book. They appear by chapter and in the order in which they are generally
applied to a typical design problem. However, each design problem is different,
and some techniques may not be applicable to some problems. Additionally,
even though the techniques are described in an order that reflects sequential and
specific design phases, they are often used in different order and in different
phases. Understanding the techniques and how they add quality to the product
aids in selecting the best technique for each situation.
The best practices described in this book make up a design strategy that will
help in the development of a quality product that meets the needs of the customer.
Although these techniques will consume time early in the design process, they
may eliminate expensive changes later. The importance of this design strategy is
clearly shown in Fig. 1.6.
This figure shows that Company A structures its design process so that
changes are made early, while Company B is still refining the product after it has
been released to production. At this point, changes are expensive, and early users
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1.3 Design Best Practices 7

Table 1.1 Rest practices presented in this text

Chapter 1—Introduction to the Mechanical 24. Generate concepts using prior patents.
Design Process 25. Generate concepts using contradictions.
1. Develop mechanical, electronic, and other 26. Generate concepts using TRIZ.
systems concurrently. 27. Generate concepts using morphologies.
28. Develop product architectures using design
Chapter 2—Understanding Mechanical Design structure matrices.
2. Benchmark existing products to understand 29. Complete provisional patent applications.
how they are made, assembled, and function.
Chapter 8—Concept Evaluation and Selection
Chapter 3—Designers and Design Teams 30. Use a design-test-build sequence when
3. Assemble product design teams with possible.
diverse, specific expertise. 31. Know each system’s technology readiness.
4. Make positive use of team members’ 32. Use decision matrices to evaluate concepts
problem-solving behaviors. and support decision making.
Chapter 4—The Design Process 33. Understand the product, project, and decision
5. Recognize that the design process is a risks.
series of decisions. 34. Make robust decisions—decisions insensitive
6. Document all concepts and decisions for to noise.
reuse, patent application and defense, Chapter 9—Product Generation
and regulatory requirements. 35. Use bills of materials to manage the evolution
7. Build product and project history with a of products.
PDM/PLM system. 36. Develop products from constraints to configuration
Chapter 5—Project Definition to connections to components.
8. Ensure you have good reasons for beginning Chapter 10—Product Evaluation for Performance and
a project. the Effects of Variation
9. Make rational product portfolio decisions. 37. Use P-diagrams to manage product performance
10. Have a clear design process reflected in the evaluation.
project plan. 38. Use factor of safety as a design variable.
11. Use models and prototypes as learning 39. Develop tolerances consistent with needed
opportunities. function, fit, and manufacturing methods.
12. Plan tasks around deliverables. 40. Support trade-offs with sensitivity analysis.
Chapter 6—Product Definition 41. Test products using design of experiments/robust
13. Identify product customers. design methods.
14. Capture customers’ requirements. Chapter 11—Product Evaluation: Design for Cost,
15. Determine what is important to customers. Manufacture, Assembly, and Other Matters
16. Generate clear and measurable engineering 42. Design for cost.
specifications. 43. Design for manufacture.
17. Determine how the engineering specifications 44. Design for assembly.
relate to the customers’ requirements. 45. Design for reliability.
18. Establish targets, thresholds, and inter-dependence 46. Access and manage risks.
of engineering specifications. 47. Design for test and maintenance.
Chapter 7—Concept Generation 48. Design for sustainability.
19. Generate multiple concepts. Chapter 12—Wrapping up the Design Process and
20. Reverse engineer to understand function. Supporting the Product
21. Build functional models as a basis for form 49. Manage post-release engineering changes.
generation. 50. Apply for design and utility patents as good design
22. Generate concepts using brain storming. and business practice.
23. Generate concepts using analogies with nature
and devices in other fields.
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8 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Mechanical Design Process

Company B

Start production
Actual project
hours

Company A
Ideal effort

Changes

Time

Figure 1.6 Engineering changes during automobile development. (For more

details on this figure see Section 2.2.3.)

are subjected to a low-quality product. It is important to realize that a “change”

requires a decision(s) and thus the ordinate of the figure could be labeled
“decisions.”
The goal of the design process is not to eliminate changes but to manage
the evolution of the design so that most changes come through iterations and
decisions early in the process. The best practices listed in Table 1.1 also help in
developing creative solutions to design problems. This may sound paradoxical,
as lists imply rigidity and creativity implies freedom, however, creativity does
not spring from randomness. Thomas Edison, certainly one of the most creative
designers in history, expressed it well: “Genius,” he said, “is 1% inspiration and
99% perspiration.” The inspiration for creativity can only occur if the perspiration
is properly directed and focused. The techniques presented here help the perspira-
tion occur early in the design process so that the inspiration does not occur when
it is too late to have any influence on the product. Inspiration is still vital to good
design. The techniques that make up the design process are only an attempt to
organize the perspiration.
These techniques also force documentation of the progress of the design,
requiring the development of notes, sketches, informational tables and matrices,
prototypes, and analyses—records of the design’s evolution that will be useful
later in the design process.

1.4 WHAT MAKES DESIGN HARD?

Besides the need to focus on the entire life cycle when designing products, there
are other characteristics of design problems that make the process hard.
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1.4 What Makes Design Hard? 9

Figure 1.7 A simple lap joint.

1.4.1 Design Problems Have Multiple Possible Answers

Consider a problem from a textbook on the design of machine components,
described in Fig. 1.7.
What size SAE grade 5 bolt should be used to fasten together two pieces of 1045 sheet
steel, each 4 mm thick and 6 cm wide, which are lapped over each other and loaded with
100 N?

In this problem the need is very clear, and if we know the methods for analyzing
shear stress in bolts, the problem is easily understood. There is no necessity to
design the joint because a design solution is already given, namely, a grade 5
bolt, with one parameter to be determined—its diameter. The product evaluation
is straight from textbook formulas, and the only decision made is in determining
whether we did the problem correctly.
In comparison, consider this, only slightly different, problem:
Design a joint to fasten together two pieces of 1045 sheet steel, each 4 mm thick and 6 cm
wide, which are lapped over each other and loaded with 100 N.
The only difference between these problems is in their opening clauses (shown in
italics) and a period replacing the question mark (you might want to think about
this change in punctuation). The second problem is even easier to understand than
the first; we do not need to know how to design for shear failure in bolted joints.
However, there is much more latitude in generating ideas for potential concepts
here. It may be possible to use a bolted joint, a glued joint, a joint in which the
two pieces are folded over each other, a welded joint, a joint held by magnets, a
Velcro joint, or a bubble-gum joint. Which one is best depends on other, unstated
factors. This problem is not as well defined as the first one. To evaluate proposed
concepts, more information about the joint is needed. In other words, the problem
is not really understood at all. Some questions still need to be answered: Will the
joint require disassembly? Will it be used at high temperatures? What tools are
available to make the joint? What skill levels do the joint manufacturers have?
The first problem statement describes an analysis problem. To solve it we
need to find the correct formula and plug in the right values. The second statement
describes a design problem, which is ill-defined in that the problem statement does
not give all the information needed to find the solution. The potential solutions
are not given and the constraints on the solution are incomplete. This problem
requires us to fill in missing information to understand it fully.
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10 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Mechanical Design Process

Design process
knowledge

Many ideas,
Design decisions and
need dead ends

Satisfactory
solutions

Physics
Materials Electric
science motors
Engineering Thermodynamics
science
Manufacturing
Engineering
processes
Welding economics
design
Pumps Domain
Kinematics
knowledge

Figure 1.8 The many results of the design process.

A big difference between the two problems is in the number of potential

solutions. For the first problem there is only one correct answer. For the second
there is no correct answer. In fact, there may be many good solutions to this
problem, and it may be difficult if not impossible to define what is meant by
the “best solution.” Just consider all the different cars, televisions, and other
products that compete in the same market. In each case, all the different models
solve essentially the same problem, yet there are many different solutions. The
goal in design is to find a good solution that leads to a quality product with
the least commitment of time and other resources. All design problems have
a multitude of satisfactory solutions and no clear best solution. This is shown
graphically in Fig. 1.8, where the factors that affect the solution developed are
noted. Domain knowledge is developed through the study of engineering physics
and other technical areas and through the observation of existing products. It is
the study of science and engineering science that provides the basis on which the
design process is based. Design process knowledge is the subject of this book.
For mechanical design problems in particular, there is an additional char-
acteristic: the solution must be a piece of working hardware—a product. Thus,
mechanical design problems begin with an ill-defined need and result in an object
that behaves in a certain way, a way that the designers feel meets this need. This
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1.4 What Makes Design Hard? 11

Design problems have many satisfactory solutions but no clear

best solution.

creates a paradox. A designer must develop a device that, by definition, has the
capabilities to meet some need that is not fully defined.

1.4.2 As Knowledge Is Gained Design Freedom Is Lost

When a new design problem is begun, very little may be known about the so-
lution, especially if the problem is a new one for the designer. As work on the
project progresses, the designer’s knowledge about the technologies involved and
the alternative solutions increases, as shown in Fig. 1.9. The curve representing
knowledge about the problem is a learning curve; the steeper the slope, the more
knowledge is gained per unit time. Throughout most of the design process the
learning rate is high. After completing a project, most designers want a chance
to start all over in order to do the project properly now that they fully understand
it. Unfortunately, few designers get the opportunity to redo their projects.
Conversely, since design is a series of decisions and each decision eliminates
alternative possibilities, design freedom is lost as the process proceeds. Poor
decisions made early may be difficult and expensive (or impossible) to rectify
later in the project. Thus, the goal during the design process is to learn as much
about the evolving product as early as possible in the design process because
during the early phases changes are least expensive.

100

Knowledge about
80 the design problem

60
Percentage

40

Design
20 freedom

0
Time into design process

Figure 1.9 The design process paradox.

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12 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Mechanical Design Process

A design paradox: The more you learn the less freedom you have
to use what you know.

1.4.3 Decisions Are Made Throughout the Design

Process
Regardless of the design problem or phase in the design process, designers need
to make many decisions. A decision is needed whenever there is a choice among
multiple alternatives. Typically decisions will be made about what design goals
to choose, which concepts to consider, how to break the product into systems and
subsystems, what shapes to use, which manufacturing process to use, and so on.
What makes these decisions hard is described here.
The information is uncertain. In the previous section we discussed how you
gain knowledge as you design. The less knowledge, the higher the uncertainty
and, the more the uncertainty, the higher the risk that the design will fail. Thus,
it is important to understand what is known and what is unknown, and to use
methods that manage uncertainty.
The information is incomplete, you simply may not have all the information
you need to make a decision. You may be forced to make decisions because time
is running out, other people need your commitment, or a superior demands an
answer: regardless of completeness. The alternative is to use resources (i.e., time
and money) to fill in the missing information if possible.
Information is conflicting in that one party (i.e., a member of the design team
or a customer) thinks one thing and another party disagrees. It may be possible
to resolve the conflict through more analysis of the situation (using resources) or
maybe not. The hard part here is that design is not only a technical effort but a
social problem, and the conflict may be based on the conflicting parties’ values
and not easily changed.
These are the realities of design. They make it messy. There is never enough
time and money to get rid of all the uncertainty and incompleteness, and there
will always be conflicting information. One goal here is to develop methods that
help manage these realities as best we can. These methods, best practices, are all
designed to help make design decisions and control the messiness as best as is
possible.
Every decision requires five basic actions as shown connected with solid
lines in Fig 1.10: understand, develop, generate, evaluate, and decide what to
do next.
Beginning on the left side of Fig. 1.10, you must understand the issue.
Decisions are needed to resolve issues and the resolution is only as good as the
understanding. Here the term issue is used to note the problem or question at
hand. Product definition, one of the design process phases, is almost totally fo-
cused on understanding the design problem. Making sure the right issue is being
attacked is a key part of all the other methods in this book as well. In the previous
section the issue was to design a lap joint to fasten together two pieces of metal.
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1.4 What Makes Design Hard? 13

Develop
Measures

Generate
Alternatives

Understand Evaluate
the Issue Alternatives

Decide What
to do Next

Address New Chose Alternative

Issues and Take Action

Figure 1.10 Decision-making actions.

This is a well-defined issue, but many are less so, such as “design a propulsion
system for lunar rover.”
The second action is to develop measures. How will you know if you have
a solution for the issue? You can only tell if you have a good lap joint if you
know “measures” like joint strength, thickness, corrosion resistance, etc. You
only know which propulsion system is best for the lunar rover if you know how
fast it should propel the rover and for how long. Developing measures is a big
part of understanding a design problem, as will be discussed in Chapter 6.
The third action is to generate alternatives that can possibly resolve the issue
or answer the question. If you only have one alternative, you don’t have a decision
to make. For some problems the alternatives are evident, and there are only two or
three realistic options. But, for most design problems, the search for alternatives
is a major part of the effort. For the lap joint, the alternatives are bolts, welds, glue,
etc. For the lunar rover, the options are wheels of many different configurations,
treads, rocket packs, and many others, depending on problem boundaries realized
during issue understanding.
The fourth action is to evaluate the alternatives relative to what is learned
during understanding. For the lap joint, there are analysis methods learned in
mechanical components courses, or through vendor handbooks, that can be com-
pared to goals discovered during issue understanding to provide information for
decision making. But not all evaluation relies on analysis, as some information is
hard to quantify, especially during conceptual design. Finally, all evaluations are
uncertain, most are incomplete, and some are conflicting. Part of any best practice
is to reduce the effect of these on the decision, or at a minimum make their effect
evident.
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14 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Mechanical Design Process

While “decision making” is usually seen as choosing an alternative, it is

really more to decide what to do next, as shown in Fig. 1.10. There are six
different paths that could be taken, shown as dashed lines. The next action could
be to refine the issue understanding, generate refined or more alternatives, or
do more evaluation of the alternatives. Ideally, an alternative can be chosen and
documented. Often, the effort to understand, generate, and evaluate raises new
issues that then start other understand, generate, evaluate, and decide sequences.
Not shown in Fig 1.10, but very important, is the meta decision of planning
how to best understand, generate, evaluate, and decide. Best practices are basically
templates for how to manage these actions for specific types of issues. A good
designer knows which to use and when to use them.

1.4.4 It Is Easy to “Silo” Mechanical Design

In the structure shown in Fig. 1.11, the engineering design process is walled off
from the other product development functions. Basically, people in marketing
communicate a perceived market need to engineering either as a simple, written
request or, in many instances, orally. This is effectively a one-way communication
and is thus represented as information that is “thrown over the wall.”
Engineering interprets the request, develops concepts, and refines the best
concept into manufacturing specifications (i.e., drawings, bills of materials, and
assembly instructions). These manufacturing specifications are thrown over the
wall to be produced. Manufacturing then interprets the information passed to it
and builds what it thinks engineering wanted.
Unfortunately, often what is manufactured by a company using the over-the-
wall process is not what the customer had in mind. This is because of the many
weaknesses in this product development process. First, marketing may not be able
to communicate to engineering a clear picture of what the customers want. Since
the design engineers have no contact with the customers and limited communi-
cation with marketing, there is much room for poor understanding of the design
problem. Second, design engineers do not know as much about the manufacturing
processes as manufacturing specialists, and therefore some parts may not be able
to be manufactured as drawn or manufactured on existing equipment. Further,
manufacturing experts may know less-expensive methods to produce the prod-
uct. Thus, this single-direction over-the-wall approach is inefficient and costly
and may result in poor-quality products. Although many companies still use this
method, most are realizing its weaknesses and are moving away from its use.

Customers Marketing Engineering Production

Design

Figure 1.11 The over-the-wall design method.

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1.5 Twenty-First-Century Design Process Challenges and Opportunities 15

Human beings don’t have a pollution problem; they have a design

problem. The Upcycle, W. McDonough and M. Braungart, 2013.

The best practices in this book try to ensure that the walls are broken down by
improving communication, ensuring the right people are involved in the decision-
making process and that the best possible information is used each step of the
Best Practice:
way. This requires a systems view of product development. This view is that Develop mechanical,
many functions in a product can be fulfilled mechanically, electronically, or in electronic, and other
software; and that many products have all three interacting to make the best prod- systems concurrently.
uct. To develop these systems requires concurrent development of the hardware,
electronics, and software, leading to our first best practice.
In many ways this book is a systems design book. Although titled The
Mechanical Design Process the methods and best practices apply across the
entire product develop process.

1.5 TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY DESIGN

PROCESS CHALLENGES AND
OPPORTUNITIES
Three evolving influences will affect the design process: design for sustainability,
design for additive manufacturing, and the effect of the Internet and social media
on the design process. While it is impossible to tell how these will change the
practice of design, they will. Most probably they will provide the opportunity to
make better products or to make bigger blunders, faster. It is certain that new best
practices will evolve from the effect of these on the design process.

1.5.1 Design for Sustainability

It is important to realize that design engineers have much control over what
products are designed and how they interact with the Earth over their lifetime.
The responsibility that goes with designing is well summarized in the Hannover
Principles. These were developed for EXPO 2000, The World’s Fair in Hannover,
Germany. These principles define the basics of Design for Sustainability (DFS).
DFS requires awareness of the short- and long-term consequences of your design
decisions.
The Hannover Principles aim to provide a platform on which designers can
consider how to adapt their work toward sustainable ends. According to the World
Commission on Environment and Development, the high-level goal is “meeting
the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.”
The Hannover Principles are:
1. Insist on rights of humanity and nature to coexist in a healthy, supportive,
diverse, and sustainable condition.
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16 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Mechanical Design Process

You are responsible for the impact of your products on others.

2. Recognize interdependence. The elements of human design interact with

and depend on the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every
scale. Expand design considerations to recognizing even distant effects.
3. Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions on human
well-being, the viability of natural systems, and their right to coexist.
4. Create safe objects of long-term value. Do not burden future generations
with requirements for maintenance or vigilant administration of potential
danger due to the careless creation of products, processes, or standards.
5. Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimize the full life cycle
of products and processes to approach the state of natural systems in which
there is no waste.
6. Rely on natural energy flows. Human designs should, like the living world,
derive their creative forces from perpetual solar income. Incorporate this
energy efficiently and safely for responsible use.
7. Understand the limitations of design. No human creation lasts forever and
design does not solve all problems. Those who create and plan should practice
humility in the face of nature. Treat nature as a model and mentor, not as an
inconvenience to be evaded or controlled.
8. Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge. Encourage
direct and open communication between colleagues, patrons, manufacturers,
and users to link long-term sustainable considerations with ethical responsi-
bility, and reestablish the integral relationship between natural processes and
human activity.
9. Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of
human settlement including community, dwelling, industry, and trade in
terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material
consciousness.
We will work to respect these principles in the chapters that follow. Many
products are retired to landfills, but in keeping with the first three principles, and
focusing on the fifth principle, it is best to design products that can be reused and
recycled. We will specifically detail DFS in Section 11.7.
An additional concern here is that some materials now commonly available
for products will become more expensive or even impossible to obtain. This will
have an effect on the design of future products, which may be, to some degree,
offset by additive manufacturing, the subject of the next section.

1.5.2 Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, rapid prototyping, or desktop
manufacturing, is the process of making three-dimensional solid objects from
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1.5 Twenty-First-Century Design Process Challenges and Opportunities 17

computer models. It is called “additive” because layers or dots of material are

built up to make the part. While this manufacturing method has been evolving
since the 1980s, its use has exploded since 2000 as the cost and machine size have
come down and the range of materials has increased. The machine cost and size
have come down to the point that it is possible to have a manufacturing machine
on your desktop, hence one of its names, “desktop manufacturing.” While its
initial use was a rapid prototyping tool (hence another of its names), in recent
last years it has begun to be used as a manufacturing method for lowvolume
products.
What makes this technology revolutionary and important to mention up front
in this book is that it may, as it continues to mature, have a profound effect on the
design process. There are five ways this could change the design process:

1. The ability for anybody to easily and rapidly make components. This has
two major implications. Anybody who can make a solid model of a component
can print it at home. This means that anyone can design components and
realize them almost instantly. While this opens the way for a total change
in how products are realized, there is little stopping poor, even dangerous
products.
2. The ability to make parts not previously possible. In the past, one of the
signs of a poor designer was creating components that were hard or even
impossible to manufacture. With additive manufacturing, this is no longer
true—if you can draw it, you can make it.
3. The ability to change materials in a single component. In the past a com-
ponent had to be made of a single material. The best you could do to change
material properties in a part was a surface treatment (e.g., heat-treating met-
als) or using a multistep process (co-extrude plastics with the inner extrusion
of one material and the outer layer another material). With additive manufac-
turing, the material properties can be altered throughout the component. For
example, a toothbrush could be printed as a single item with a rigid handle,
flexible yet stiff bristles, and a soft gum massager.
4. The ability to combine functions in ways not previously possible. The pre-
vious two capabilities allow product functions to be combined in ways never
before possible. As will be developed in the next chapter, mechanical design
is very much a function-driven exercise. The effect of additive manufacturing
on the design of function is still evolving.
5. The ability to make custom products. Each item printed can be slightly
different from the other, leading to mass customization. For example, glasses
frames could be printed for each individual based on a scan of head shape
and color desires. The glasses could be made in the store where the frames
were purchased, at a mobile site, or even on the kitchen table.

This technology may alter who does design, how much of the process is automated,
and what will appear in later editions of this book.
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18 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Mechanical Design Process

1.5.3 Design in the Connected World

Designers started using the Internet in the late 1980s. Until quite recently, it has
been primarily for communication and sharing files. Since 2010 the evolving use
of the Cloud and social media has begun to affect the design process in new ways.
The long-term consequence of these technologies on the design process can only
be imagined. Consider these four features of a connected world:
1. Online communication. Prior to 2000 communication was limited to email
communication, file sharing for images, and limited quality video conferenc-
ing. Since that time communication via the Web has improved though much
richer information sharing and the ability to design with distributed teams.
The support capabilities are still evolving at a rapid pace.
2. Social media. While social media tools have had a profound effect on com-
munication amongst friends and the ability to support sales, they have had
little effect on the design process. But this is changing. In a 2011 survey,
early adopters of using social media to support design reported more (and
better) product alternatives and measures (46%), faster time to market (18%),
faster product adoption (15%), lower product costs (15%), and lower product
development costs (15%). It is hard to foresee how these systems will evolve
and affect how designers collaborate and share information.
3. Crowd sourcing. The ability to have multiple people co-developing a prod-
uct, each adding their ideas and knowledge to it, is what the design process
is all about. Extending the involvement in the design process to others who
are not in your group or company may greatly change the design process.
Wikipedia, the ultimate example of crowd sourcing, was only launched in
2001. It remained a weak reference source until about 2010, when the main-
stream began to realize that the quality of the entries in it was really quite
good. Experiments in crowd sourcing physical products is in its infancy.
4. Information glut. Soon the number of electronic devices and sensors on
the Web will surpass one trillion in number. The information content being
communicated amongst these devices will contain important product design
nuggets. For example, how each person is using a specific product will soon be
captured by an on-board processor that will communicate this information for
your use in developing improvements. How this information will be managed
and used is unknown, but it will certainly affect the design process.
The influences introduced here will evolve while this book is in print. They will
change what is said here. Read the 6th edition to see what has developed.

1.6 DESIGN PROCESS CASE STUDIES

AND TEMPLATES IN THIS BOOK
Two online capabilities tied to best practices support this book: Case studies
and templates. The case studies are an ever-growing series of five- to ten-page
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1.8 Sources 19

descriptions of how some of the best practices in this book were used by a com-
pany to improve or develop new products. Each case study was written by a
working design engineer describing best practices used. These case studies can
be downloaded from the McGraw-Hill or the author’s website as noted at the end
of each relevant chapter.
Also supporting the best practices are templates. These Word or Excel files
enable many best practices in a fill-in-the-blanks format. They too can be down-
loaded from the McGraw-Hill or the author’s website as noted at the end of each
relevant chapter.

1.7 SUMMARY
■ The design process is the organization and management of people and the
information they develop in the evolution of a product—any physical device.
■ The process described in this book integrates all the stakeholders from the
beginning of the design process through production and delivery, use, and
end of life.
■ The design process includes project definition, product definition, conceptual
design, and product development.
■ Design is made hard because:
■ Design problems have multiple possible answers.
■ As knowledge is gained design freedom is lost.
■ Decisions must be made throughout the design process based on uncertain,
incomplete, and conflicting information.
■ It is easy to “silo” mechanical design.
■ The information flow in making a decision is: understand, generate, evaluate,
and decide what to do next.
■ Three influences will change the design process.
■ Design for sustainability, which is well described in the Hanover Princi-
ples.
■ Additive manufacturing.
■ Design in the connected world.

1.8 SOURCES
Two sources for the Hanover Principles:
Hanover Principles: Design for sustainability, www.mcdonough.com/wp-content/uploads
/2013/03/Hannover-Principles-1992.pdf
McDonough, W., and M. Braungart: Cradle to Cradle, North Point Press is N.Y. N.Y.
Kenly A., and B. Poston: Social media and product innovation, Kalypso white paper, 2011.
http://kalypso.com/downloads/insights/Kalypso Social Media and Product Innovation
1.pdf
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20 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to the Mechanical Design Process

1.9 EXERCISES
1.1 From the Key Questions at the beginning of the chapter:
a. What are the stages of a product’s life cycle?
b. What are the important phases of the design stage?
c. How are design problems different from analysis problems?
d. Why is it that during design, the more you know, the less design freedom you have?
e. Why are design problems characterized by information that is uncertain, incomplete,
and conflicting?
f. What are the four basic actions in decision making?
g. What are best practices and why are they important?
1.2. Change a problem from one of your engineering science classes into a design problem.
Try changing as few words as possible.
1.3. How well do the following products meet the Hannover Principles?
a. Your cell phone
b. The packaging your cell phone came in
c. Your car
d. A newspaper
1.4. To experience the limitations of the over-the-wall design method try this. With a group
of four to six people, have one person write down the description of some object that
is not familiar to the others. This description should contain at least six different nouns
that describe different features of the object. Without showing the description to the
others, the first person describes the object to one other person in such a manner that
the others can’t hear. This can be done by whispering or leaving the room. Limit the
description to what was written down. The second person now conveys the information
to the third person, and so on until the last person re-describes the object to the whole
group and compares it to the original written description. The modification that occurs
is magnified with more complex objects and poorer communication. Try this by word
of mouth only and also taking notes. (Professor Mark Costello of Georgia Institute of
Technology originated this problem.)