The design control system has to be concerned with the creation and revision of documents, as well as the management of finished documents. Additional mechanisms are required to provide needed flexibility while preserving the integrity of design documentation. These additional mechanisms are embodied in the procedures for review and approval of various documents.
It is important that the design change procedures always include re-verifying and re-validating the design. Fortunately, most design changes occur early in the design process, prior to extensive design validation. Thus, for most design changes, a simple inspection is all that is required. The later in the development cycle that the change occurs, the more important the validation review becomes. There are numerous cases when seemingly innocuous design changes made late in the design phase or following release of the design to market have had disastrous consequences.
Archive for the ‘Industrial Design’ Category
APPLICATION OF DOCUMENT AND CHANGE CONTROLS TO DESIGN
12/01/2009Industrial design, Expected Payoff
09/29/2009What are the expected payoffs that accrue from being more sensitive to component detail? First, it is generally at the immediate component interface that people make mistakes, many of which may result in product damage or personal injury. Therefore, from the standpoint of product liability, we should try to prevent human error. Second, it is at the immediate interface that a great many of the confusions or stresses occur which make product users dissatisfied enough with a product not to purchase it ever again. This potential loss of future sales should stimulate the designer to try to provide the most effective interface possible the first time. Third, in this day of proliferating technology and hardware, competition is great with retrospect to making any product available to the largest market. If a product requires special user skill to overcome basic component interface deficiencies that product may end up only in the hands of a small number of consumers because the rest of the potential buyers are looking for something they can use easily and correctly without having to become experts.
New design ideas
09/29/2009Sometimes a new idea seems to have all the ingredients necessary to improve user efficiency, but because the immediate interface is so radically different from what people expect, we lend to induce operator error and confusion. Test each idea on a sufficiently large and representative sample of the expected user population to demonstrate either that few people seem to have problems or that appropriate indoctrination and training will overcome negative expectancies and that subsequent reversals are not probable.
Product design
09/29/2009Product design is the process of idea generation, concept development, testing and manufacturing or implementing the object or service. The Product Design deals with the more immediate interface between the systems, subsystem.
Although a system or subsystem may be well conceived in terms of what it does and what it requires the user to do, it can fail or become operationally less effective if the immediate interface design contains features that cause the user difficulties in making effective contact with it, either directly in terms of physical contact or indirectly in terms of perceiving through visual or auditory channels. Too often, consumers have been brainwashed into believing that difficult controls and displays, uncomfortable furniture, and hard-to-operate fasteners or locks are things they have to live with. This is hardly ever true. Most poor designs are due to the fact that the designer was not aware of human factors and therefore spent all his or her time making sure that the engineering features were satisfactory, that the component or product was easy to manufacture, or that the product was attractive. As a result the consumer reacts like a man who gets used to a rock in his shoe; even though the rock makes a sore spot on his foot or causes him to walk in a peculiar way; he tends to go about his business without stopping to remove it.
It requires competencies beyond traditional engineering and computer science to engage in a multidisciplinary team for the development of successful products and services which benefit the world.
CONCEPT DOCUMENTS VERSUS DESIGN INPUT
09/19/2009In some cases, the marketing staff, who maintain close contact with customers and users, determine a need for a new product, or enhancements to an existing product. Alternatively, the idea for a new product may evolve out of a research. In any case, the result is a concept document specifying some of the desired characteristics of the new product.
Some members of the design community view these marketing memoranda, or the equivalent, as the design input. However, that is not the intent of the quality system requirements. Such concept documents are rarely comprehensive, and should not be expected to be so. Rather, the intent of the quality system requirements is that the product conceptual description be elaborated, expanded, and transformed into a complete set of design input requirements which are written to an engineering level of detail.
This is an important concept. The use of qualitative terms in a concept document is both appropriate and practical. This is often not the case for a document to be used as a basis for design. Even the simplest of terms can have enormous design implications. For example, the term “must be portable” in a concept document raises questions in the minds of product developers about issues such as size and weight limitations, resistance to shock and vibration, the need for protection from moisture and corrosion, the capability of operating over a wide temperature range, and many others. Thus, a concept document may be the starting point for development, but it is not the design input requirement. This is a key principle-the design input requirements are the result of the first stage of the design control process.
Human factors, before engineering?
09/15/2009Human factors involves the study of all aspects of the way humans relate to the world around them, with the aim of improving operational performance, safety, through life costs and/or adoption through improvement in the experience of the end user.
It involves how people interact with tasks, machines, and the environment with the consideration that humans have limitations and capabilities.
For example, pilots were often trained on one generation of aircraft, but by the time they got to the war zone, they were required to fly a newer model. The newer model was usually more complex than the older one and, even more detrimental, the controls may have had opposing functions assigned to them. Some aircraft required that the control stick be pulled back toward the pilot in order to pull the nose up. In other aircraft the exact opposite was required; namely, in order to ascend you would push the stick away from you. Needless to say, in an emergency situation many pilots became confused and performed the incorrect maneuver, with disastrous results.
What’s before engineering?
09/15/2009The Design Exploration is a previous study before Engineering and consists in pencil sketches, or a foam model study and full size views rendered of front, side, top, rear. Creating 3D CAD concepts of all features is another way of mechanical exploration. We need to create and develop the concept and specifications that optimize the function, value and appearance of the product and its system, for the mutual benefit of both user and manufacturer.
Human factors must be reviewed after the creation of a mock-up that is realistic to the degree required to review the concept’s form factor, overall assembly theory and disassembly requirements etc.
Here is where the Engineering starts.
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