ABSTRACT
Design is an integral part of every engineering discipline. Airplanes, bridges, buildings, electronic devices, cars, and many other products of similar complexity are all designed. In civil engineering, designs are used to specify detailed plans for developing physical and naturally built environments, such as bridges, roads, canals, dams, and buildings. In electrical engineering, designs are used to capture, evaluate, and specify the detailed qualitative and quantitative description of solutions for telecommunication systems, electrical systems, and electronic devices. In mechanical engineering, designs are used for analyzing, evaluating, and specifying technical features required to construct machines and tools, such as industrial equipment, heating and cooling systems, aircraƒs, robots, and medical devices. In all other engineering disciplines, design provides a systematic approach for creating products that meet their intended functions and users’ expectations. Formally, Dym and Little (2008, p. 6) de¥ne engineering design as
Design is a lengthy and complex process requiring signi¥cant investments in time and e¨ort. So why conduct design in engineering disciplines? ere are many possible answers to this question, stemming from simple common sense to more complicated ones involving professional, ethical, social, and legal implications. From the commonsense perspective, products of such complexity are hard to create, are costly to change, and, when built carelessly or incorrectly, can signi¥cantly impact human life. When working toward the creation of complex products, teams must organize in a disciplined manner, and a systematic approach needs to be employed to carefully ensure that products are built to meet their speci¥cations. Consider the construction of a bridge that spans over a body of water and is required to support a particular weight, to maintain access to watercraƒs navigating underneath, to withstand expected wind speeds, and to provide other features such as sidewalks-all while being bound by a schedule and budget. e successful construction of such a bridge is a nontrivial task and requires years of experience, formal education, and large teams collaborating together to achieve the construction goals. If constructed incorrectly , reconstructing the bridge can skyrocket from its original construction cost; worse yet, if defects are undetected, the bridge could collapse, resulting in the catastrophic loss of human life. Similar to the construction of the bridge, teams engineering other products,
such as airplanes, watercraƒs, medical devices, and safety-critical soƒware systems, share comparable challenges, and failure of these products can also result in catastrophic events. In an engineering environment, before product construction begins, the design of products needs to be carefully and extensively planned, evaluated, veri¥ed, and validated to ensure the product’s success. is is mainly achieved through design.
