Design Paths

One main reason teaching engineering design is difficult is the number of permutations we can arrive at a design work. For a professional engineer or designer to see a design opportunity, the process he uses can be one shown in the diagram above. He sees opportunity from experience he has accumulated through talking to customers or clients. He then develops a product design, i.e., a basic design idea for a product or service, and then develops its engineering design, i.e., doing the detailed engineering works.

Another possibility is captured by the next diagram below.

The first step is the same as above: seeing the opportunity from his contacts. The second step though is detailed engineering works he does by refining a current design he has access to. To refine the current design, he may realize that he needs to come up with a new product idea, so that the product design comes after the engineering design works.

There are a total 6 permutations to the 3 steps that define the design process. Below are the remaining four.

When market opportunity step occurs in the middle, it requires the designer or the design engineer to test his initial design to a market, either real or proxy through surveys.

These six possibilities show that engineering design is not an isolated discipline. It requires us to acknowledge that all three play a role.