The Pennsylvania State University

The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering USING PRODUCT DISSECTION TO EXPOSE ENGINEERING STUDENTS TO CULTURAL ISSUES IN PRODUCT DESIGN A Thesis in Industrial Engineering by Kang Kang 2011 Kang Kang Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science August 2011 ii The thesis of Kang Kang was reviewed and approved* by the following: Timothy W. Simpson Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering Thesis Advisor Gül E. Okudan Kremer Associate Professor, Engineering Design and Industrial Engineering Paul Griffin Peter and Angela Dal Pezzo Department Head Chair Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT With the growing use of product dissection for benchmarking purposes in industry and for engineering education purposes in academia, a systematic and practical dissection methodology and a model for dissection in education are needed. This work reviews and compares existing methodologies and based on that introduces an integrated product dissection methodology to assess product architecture and functionality. A case study is used to demonstrate the proposed methodology on two rice cookers, and cultural issues of rice cooker design are identified. With globalization becoming an important issue, bringing the concept of global and societal issues into engineering design education is essential. Inspired by the findings of the rice cooker dissection, an experiment is conducted to test the incorporation of rice cookers into product dissection activities in the Spring 2011 offering of ME240: Product Dissection at the Pennsylvania State University. The purpose of adding rice cookers to the appliances dissection section of the course is to expose students to the cultural issues of rice cooker design (e.g., product functions and features based on cooking and dietary needs). The students’ responses were collected and analyzed including numbers of correct responses, sketches of mechanisms and components, suggestions for improving the design, and feedback on cultural needs. The results provide a baseline for future educational evaluation. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. vi LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1 Introduction to Product Dissection .......................................................................... 1 1.1 Importance of Product Dissection .............................................................................. 1 1.1.1 Applications in industry .................................................................................. 1 1.1.2 The Law and Economics ................................................................................. 3 1.2 Engineering Design Education ................................................................................... 4 1.3 The Definition of Culture and Possible Impact on Product Design ........................... 5 1.4 Research Objectives ................................................................................................... 7 1.5 Overview of the Thesis .............................................................................................. 7 Chapter 2 Product Dissection: Definitions, Related Work and Methodologies ....................... 9 2.1 Definition and Related Terms .................................................................................... 9 2.2 Comparison of Methodologies ................................................................................... 10 2.3 Methods and Tools to Support Systematic Product Dissection ................................. 16 2.3.1 Customer Needs Assessment and Function Analysis ...................................... 16 2.3.2 Tools to Aid Dissection ................................................................................... 24 2.3.3 Product Architecture and Decomposition Tools ............................................. 25 2.4 Summary .................................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 3 A Proposed Product Dissection Methodology ........................................................ 30 3.1 Phase I: Pre-Dissection .............................................................................................. 32 3.1.1 Step 1: Investigation and Hypothesis .............................................................. 32 3.1.2 Step 2: Dissection Plan and Preparation .......................................................... 34 3.2 Phase II: During Dissection ....................................................................................... 37 3.2.1 Step 1: Dissection of the Product to Lowest Level ......................................... 37 3.2.2 Step 2: Documentation of the Process of Disassembly ................................... 37 3.3 Phase III: After-Dissection ......................................................................................... 39 3.3.1 Step 1: Experiment with the Whole Product ................................................... 39 3.3.2 Step 2: Analysis and Better Understanding ..................................................... 40 3.3.3 Step 3: Further Investigation and Analysis ..................................................... 42 3.4 Comparison of the Existing Work and Proposed Methodology................................. 43 Chapter 4 Product Dissection Case Study---Rice Cooker........................................................ 47 4.1 Phase I: Pre-Dissection .............................................................................................. 48 4.1.1 Step 1: Investigation and Hypothesis .............................................................. 48 4.1.2 Step 2: Dissection Plan and Preparation .......................................................... 63 v 4.2 Phase II: During-Dissection ....................................................................................... 65 4.2.1 Step 1: Dissection of the Product to Lowest Level ......................................... 65 4.2.2 Step 2: Documentation of the Process of Disassembly ................................... 66 4.3 Phase III: After-Dissection ......................................................................................... 71 4.3.1 Step 1: Experiment with the Whole Product ................................................... 71 4.3.2 Step 2: Analysis and Better Understanding ..................................................... 71 4.3.3 Step 3: Further Investigations and Analysis .................................................... 79 4.4 Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 86 Chapter 5 Exposing Students to the Cultural Aspects of Rice Cooker Design through Product Dissection ........................................................................................................... 87 5.1 Experiment Objectives ............................................................................................... 87 5.2 Product Dissection at Penn State................................................................................ 89 5.3 Rice Cooker Dissection Activity ................................................................................ 90 5.4 Metrics for Evaluation................................................................................................ 94 5.5 Experimented Results ................................................................................................ 94 5.5.1 Summary of Correct-answer Questions .......................................................... 95 5.4.2 Summary of Open-ended Questions................................................................ 103 5.6 Conclusions and Suggestions for Rice Cooker Dissection Activities ........................ 107 5.6.1 Conclusions ..................................................................................................... 108 5.6.2 Suggestions...................................................................................................... 108 Chapter 6 Summary and Future Work ..................................................................................... 110 6.1 Summary .................................................................................................................... 110 6.2 Future Work ............................................................................................................... 111 6.2.1 Product Dissection Methodology .................................................................... 111 6.2.2 Rice Cooker Dissection Activity ..................................................................... 112 6.2.3 Engineering Design Education Incorporating Product Dissection .................. 112 References ................................................................................................................................ 114 Appendix A Manual and Cooking Guide ................................................................................ 123 Appendix B Dissection Documentations ................................................................................

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