Concept design

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Concept design

• Formulating a Design Problem
• What is a design concept?
• Clarifying functional requirements
• Generating design concepts
• Analyzing alternatives

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Formulating (a design problem)
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Inputs outputs of Formulation and Concept
Design phases
Customer Needs
Customer requirements Importance weights House of
Quality Eng. characteristics Eng. Design Specs
Formulation
Concept Design
Best Alternative Concepts
?
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Design concept
Purposefully vague

• Definition
• abstract embodiment of
• physical principle,
• material, and
• geometry.

Surfaces, motion
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Working principle of a disc brake
(Pahl Beitz, European community)
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Inputs outputs to decision making
?
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Design Process during Concept Design Phase
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Generating alternatives find or create

• Archives
• libraries (university, public, corporate)
• literature (handbooks, monographs, trade mag.s,
  journals, encyclop.)
• People - coworkers, faculty, vendors, consultants
• Internet - US Patent office, vendors,
  professional societies, etc
• Existing products similar or competitive
  products (benchmarks),dissection, reverse
  engineering
• Creative methods
• Brainstorming
• Method 635
• Synectics (analogies, fantasy, empathy,
  inversion)
• Checklists (Osborn substitute, combine, adapt,
  magnify, put to other use, eliminate, rearrange,
  and reverse).

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Developing generated concepts
E.g. mini bike
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Systematic Combinations
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Morphological matrices
Developing combinations of concepts into
alternative product concept designs
Alternative Product design 1 C11, C22 ,
C31Cm2 2 C12, C23, C33 Cm3
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Summary

• Clarify functional requirements
• Activity analysis method
• Function decomposition diagram method
• Function/structure diagram method
• Generate alternatives (by finding/creating)
• Finding
• Archives, People, Internet, Existing Products
• Creative methods
• Brainstorming, Method 635, Synectics,
  Checklists
• Analyze likely to work, be manufacture-able
• Evaluate - weighted rating method