Understanding the Engineering Design Process

By Tyler Keefe
Throughout history engineers applied mathematics and scientific knowledge to think of new
solutions for technical, societal and commercial problems. While designing, researching, and
improving a variety of structures, machines, tools, materials, and systems engineers must
always be conscious of some limitations. Sometimes these limitations are imposed by
practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. In order to keep all of this in mind while developing
solutions to all the problems presented to engineers in this ever evolving world, the
engineering design process was integrated to make sure everything is covered by the end.
The engineering design process is a series of steps that engineers follow to guide them as they
solve problems. The steps in order can be seen in Figure 1. This process is extremely useful
since if used properly it works through each major roadblock an engineer may encounter. The
main limitations to this process is that it requires engineers to be tedious and meticulous on
each and every step so sometimes takes longer than some would hope for.

Define the Problem

Engineering design tasks
always occur in response
to a human need such as a
new product, system, or
machine. Important
questions to ask at this
point are:

What is the
problem or need?
Who has the
problem or need?
Why is it important
to solve?

After answering the

previous questions you
may continue on to
formulating a problem
statement in clear and
unambiguous terms. The
problem statement should
specifically address the
problem yet be broad
enough not to deter
certain solutions. The

Figure 1: Engineering Design Process

problem statement although concise should be flexible enough to allow for engineering
ingenuity.

Background Research
Background research is essential in speeding up the design process. This step allows for the
process to learn from the experience of others, whether solution to similar problems, or
avoiding mistakes normally done in the past with a similar problem. Research is not limited to
just looking up previous solutions, as you can also look into information about the target
user/customer. The exact usage of the solution may alter how you end up designing specific
parts.

Specify the Requirements

The requirements, also known as establishing a criteria for success, are the exact specifications
a design solution must meet in order to be considered successful. Included here would be
specifications or limitations given by the customer. Some of the criteria here is allowed to be
vague and further refined or modified as testing goes on. Much of the specifications here
should be coming from the extensive background research. Not all criteria here will be
weighted equally in defining success but will be ranked which is the most important in choosing
of a solutions.

Brainstorm Solutions
The next step of the design process focuses on creativity in generating new ideas that may solve
the problem. In life there is never one specific way to solve a design process, so it is best to
generate as many good possibilities during this step. The main importance of this step is so that
you dont narrow the scope of view onto one or two possible solutions while the best solution
you may have not discussed yet.

Evaluate and choose best Solution

This step now critiques all of the solutions you brainstormed. Here you are looking at which
solutions would meet all of the initial requirements since some solutions may meet more of the
requirements then another, or more accurately meet the most important of criteria. Some of
the following may be used for analysis of solutions:

Functional Analysis
Industrial Design /Ergonomics
Mechanical/Strength Analysis
Economic and Market Analysis

Product Safety and Liability

Regulatory and Compliance
Manufacturability
Testability

Developing a Solution and Building a Prototype

After now deciding on the exact solution you are going to be
working on, this step focuses on the refinement and
improvement of the given solution you picked. After
continuous work and refinement of the solutions you
eventually can get to the second part of this step which is the
prototyping step. A prototype is typically the first fully
operational production of the complete design solution.
Figure 2: Prototyping Example1
Most of the time the prototype is not fully tested and will not
operate directly as intended, but allows for testing of the design solution under real conditions.
It is important to remember that this step may be repeated multiple times because as you test
you may realize that you need to change or alter the initial prototype in order to meet a certain
criteria.

Testing and Redesign of Solution

During testing you may find new problems, make changes, and test slightly altered solutions
before you finally get to the final solution you want. Normally after testing of the prototype you
get into two different situations.
1. Solution meets the requirements and criteria. This means that after intensive testing
you decided that the current prototype was able to meet all of the needs you specified
in the beginning as well is being a complete solution to the problem you initialized at the
start. If all of this is true you can continue onto the last and final step of design process.
2. If the solution fails to meet some of the requirements or criteria you started out with,
you need to now possibly go back in the design process. Depending on the severity of
the failure of the prototype you may need to go all the way back to brainstorming and
evaluating solutions, or if it was just a smaller failure but the overall design was solid
you may just need to back to redesigning and building of a prototype.

Communicate the Results

After grueling through all the other steps of the engineering design process now you must
figure out a way to communicate the results of all your testing. Depending on what your project
or problem was may influence how you communicate the results such as a final report or a
display board for a school project, or a full blown documented report if youre a professional
engineer solving problems for an employer.

Conclusion of Engineering Design Process

The engineering design process is currently used all over industry and understanding the steps
behind the process is key to succeeding as an engineer. To conclude the process the following
will give a full example of how you may see the engineering process used in the real world.

1.) https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/design-better-faster-with-rapid-prototyping/

Imagine yourself in a group of four and the teacher provides you with spaghetti and
marshmallows and tells you to construct the tallest tower possible using on those materials.
The following will provide an example of how the engineering design process may be applied to
a find a solution.

Define the Problem The problem here is to construct the tallest tower possible using
only the available materials provided to you.
Background Research Here you can imagine talking with your group about typical
structures found in nature, or typical building layouts. Talk about what type of
structures work well for building for height. Try not to reinvent the wheel.
Specify Requirements So the first requirement is it must stand up tall on its own, and
for a second requirement lets pretend that it needs to be able to stand freely for at
least 20 seconds.
Brainstorm Now each group member decides to sketch out a possible solution to how
they think the tower should be constructed.
Evaluate and choose Solution After discussing pros and cons of each sketch with your
group members, you decided on combining a few from each of the sketches and
decided on a final sketch.
Developing a Solution/Prototype Based on the sketch you decided for the final
solution in the last sketch, you build your first tower which is the initial prototype.
Test Solution Initially you test the tower and after 10 second of free standing it begins
to tilt and collapses.
Redesign Solution After realizing that it could stand for a short time, but then falls
over, you all decided to create a wider base to add a more stable foundation.
Testing of Redesign This time after letting the tower free stand for over a minute it still
has no change. Clearly the decisions made in the redesign process were constructive in
creating a better final solution.
Communication of Results You decide to give a small demonstration in front of the
class. You decided to talk about the reasoning you made a wider base based on what
you discovered during testing.