PMU Electrical Engineering Department College Of Engineering

Design Methodology & PM (EEEN4311): Final Summary

Topic Description Review Questions
Design, development, testing, management, marketing, sales, consulting, deployment, maintenance, teaching, and research.
Engineering
1 Design is the process of devising a system, component or process to meet desired needs. It is a decision making process (often iterative) in which
Functions
basic sciences (mathematics, physics, chemistry …) are applied to convert recourses optimally to meet a stated objective.

Product development is a set of activities starting with the perception of a market opportunity and ending with the sale of a product. Product
design is one aspect of the development process
Engineering design specifies how the technical systems will work. Industrial design specifies the aesthetics, ergonomics, and user interface.
Other development activities include manufacturing and marketing.
Process phases (steps): Planning, concept generation and selection, system level design, detail design, testing and refinement.
To develop a quality product, firms have found that a wide range of skills is required. The necessary talents may be found in various types of
Product engineers, marketers, industrial designers, managers, manufacturing personnel, and others. Best practice today always involves a team of people
2 Development representing the necessary disciplines and skills (a cross-functional team). Development time and cost are also important.
Process

1. List the main product development steps in order.

2. What is engineering design?
3. Explain the importance of having a structured procedure.
4. Why is it necessary to have a multidisciplinary team to design a product? Can the product succeed if the team is lacking some required skills?
Or lacking resources? Or lacking motivation from good management?

It involves:
5. What does product planning involve?
(1) Marketing analysis to identify market opportunity and
6. Explain the impact of technology on new products (e.g. memory:
competitors.
hard disk vs flash, displays: LCD, OLED, TFT …). How does this
(2) Design: Consider existing product platform and prioritize them.
Product apply to your project?
3 Also consider new technologies and their impact on product.
Planning 7. What are the possible risks if the planning phase (step) is bypassed?
(3) Manufacturing: Identify production and/or corporate constraints
Use your project as an example.
(4) Other: Allocate project resources and timing
8. What do you think about a company that introduces a product late
(5) Mission statement (product description, goals, assumptions …)
and with inferior technology compared to competitors?
Concept (1) Identify customer needs (field visits, questionnaires, observations 9. Explain how customer needs are turned into target specifications.
4 generation …) 10. What is benchmarking on needs and metrics? What are the metrics
and selection (2) Establish target specifications (from customer needs analysis: you selected for your project?

EE Dept, PMU Dr. C. B. Yahya 2010

 interpret, organize, prioritize, metrics, benchmarks …)
(3) Generate concepts (various ideas of making product)
(4) Select the final concept: screening, scoring, combine and
improve.
(5) Set product final specifications (based on testing, tradeoffs)
(1) Testing at the concept stage is qualitative (feasibility, meets
customer needs, market potential …) later it becomes
quantitative. (prototype, hardware)
(2) Used for: go no go decisions, find best market, help select best
Product
5 concept, forecast demand, help improvement.
Testing
(3) Product concept communicated through verbal, sketch or
prototype.
(4) Targeted surveys designed to measure customer response.
(5) Used to set final specifications.
(1) Product is decomposed into functional blocks (subsystems,
modules). Create a schematic or diagram.
(2) Advantages of modular (vs integrated) products are sharing across
System and
products to reduce cost and easy upgrades.
detail
(3) Minimize subsystems and ensure each can be manufactured. Set
6 design:
the required size or geometry.
Product
(4) Identify skills and assign team members to specific subsystems.
Architecture
(5) Define integration links and interactions between subsystems
(6) Identify components for each subsystem and their appropriate
technology (type of sensor, memory, processor …).
(1) Project management includes both planning and control
(2) Identify and list all project tasks of a given project
Project
(3) Understand type of each task (sequential, parallel, and coupled).
Management:
(4) Put all tasks in a matrix with team member responsible and
7 Project Plan
timeline (due, progress) using Excel or Gantt chart.
and team
(5) Identify any critical path (longest) that demands special attention
work
(6) Importance of team work, coordination and communication
(7) Update plan to include necessary changes
(8) Communicate progress to supervisor/manager through regular
EE Dept, PMU Dr. C. B. Yahya
11. Explain how multiple product ideas are generated. What is problem
decomposition? Give examples from your project.
12. In concept selection is your goal to select the best concept or
develop the best concept?
13. What are concept rating, screening and scoring and how they apply
to your project?
14. Explain how qualitative testing can be applied to your project?
15. Explain how you decided to continue with your product idea.
16. How did you set the final specifications for your product?
17. What should happen if customer response was poor? Should
product development proceed as planned? Should there be review or
termination?
18. Can you draw the functional diagram of your product or any given
product?
19. For a given product what architecture (integral vs modular) is easier
to service and upgrade? How does architecture impact cost?
20. Can you identify the components required for a given subsystem in
your product or a given product?
21. Can you identify the interactions and links within a subsystem and a
product? Apply to your product or a given product.
22. What is outsourcing and when is it preferable to outsource one or
more product subsystems?
23. Can you break a given project into a list of tasks? Apply to your
project or any other given project.
24. Identify the type of each task and whether it is a critical path.
25. Explain how tasks are divided among team members? Should the
division be fair? Should it depend on the skills possessed?
26. Why is it necessary to update the project plan?
27. What should a progress report include?
28. Why is it important to respect the project time schedule? What are
the consequences of delays?
29. Explain the importance of team work. How did your team conduct
2010
 reports (weekly or as agreed). their project work? Any meetings, emails, phone calls?
30. Did you face any difficulties in your project execution? How did
you deal with the problem?
(1) Engineers must understand the impact of their work on society and 31. How can engineers be responsible for product related accidents?
environment. 32. Is it possible for engineers to guarantee product safety and ensure
(2) Engineers should try their best to design safe and reliable products. zero failure?
Professional (3) Professional ethics include the responsibility towards the company 33. Mention common unethical mistakes committed by engineers at
ethics, (protect their secrets, perform job as agreed in contract …) and work?
8
Product responsibility towards society (design safe and reliable products). 34. Can you think of situations where it is allowed for engineers to
Safety (4) Understand the common malpractices and avoid them (lying, cheat, lie or forge experimental data?
revealing confidential information, forging data, plagiarism, 35. What will you do if after your product reaches the customer, you
conflict of interest …) discover a faulty component that may cause accidents in certain
(5) Be familiar with some Engineering Societies Code of Ethics. operation modes?
(1) Standards provide best practice procedures for processes, services
and goods to ensure quality.
(2) Standards help companies save on research and development by
following ready standards to get their products faster to market and
meet the expected quality. 36. What are standards and codes? What is the difference between a
(3) Standards apply to specific sector (electric, communication, solar standard and a code?
Product
…) or across different sectors (quality management, environmental 37. How can standards benefit a new company?
Quality,
9 safety …). 38. How can compliance with standards make a product trustworthy
Standards
(4) The most popular standard body is ISO (ISO 9000 for quality) and help compatibility across similar products?
and Codes
other bodies include IEC (International Electrotechnical 39. Can you mention examples of standards bodies (Saudi and
Commission), ANSI (American National Standards Institute), international)? Can you name example of codes in KSA?
NEIS (National Electrical Installation Standards)…
(5) In KSA the Saudi Building Code National Committee (SBCNC)
started in 1421H using various international codes as references
(ICC, IEC, NFPA …).
(1) Patents are property rights that protect innovations and
improvements in technology. It gives the right to exclude others
40. What is a patent?
Intellectual from making, using or selling the patented technology.
41. What can be patented?
10 Property (2) The patented technology must have novelty and utility (useful).
42. How can you make sure that your are not reinventing something?
and Patents (3) Inventions must be new and useful process, machine, article of
43. Why companies like to protect their intellectual property (IP)?
manufacture, or composition of matter or any improvement on
existing items.

EE Dept, PMU Dr. C. B. Yahya 2010