Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 7-2008 THREE DESIGN TOOL FOCUSED CASE STUDIES OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN PROJECTS William Miller Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Part of the Engineering Mechanics Commons Recommended Citation Miller, William, "THREE DESIGN TOOL FOCUSED CASE STUDIES OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN PROJECTS" (2008). All Theses. 445. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/445 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THREE DESIGN TOOL FOCUSED CASE STUDIES OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN PROJECTS A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science Mechanical Engineering by William Stuart Miller August 2008 Accepted by: Joshua D. Summers, Committee Chair Gregory M. Mocko Michael L. Mears ABSTRACT Three long term mechanical engineering design projects spanning 24 months, 12 months, and 4 months are examined in this thesis. These projects are used to explore the development of a way to represent information flow throughout the design process with respect to design tools used. This is a first step in a broader effort to formalize 1) modeling of design processes, 2) establishing case study research as a formal approach to design research, and 3) developing new design process tools. A survey of existing models compares the differences between current approaches and the limitations of each. Inspired by IDEF0, an altered process model is presented in an attempt to increase the information captured by the designer when using and constructing the process models. The name of the model is Design Enabler Information Maps (DEIM) and its requirements needed for construction are discussed in the context of the three case projects. By developing a DEIM representation for each project, this thesis explores the benefit of this approach. In constructing a DEIM of a project, design activities with no productive merit, or design process dead-ends are identified. Information that is critical to design process completion is also identified in the context of its application. Furthermore, the need of a formal tool to represent complex design processes is established. The observations drawn from this thesis lay a foundation enabling future designers to better understand, represent, modify, and complete design processes by using case studies in design research. ii DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my love, Jessica, my parents, Rick and Joy, and my sister, JoAnna. Their enduring love, patience, encouragement, and sacrifices have allowed me to immerse myself in work that I absolutely love doing. They have tolerated many seemingly random and obscure discussions about diverse topics throughout the years which have shaped me into a researcher capable of completing this thesis. It is through these fine people that this work was accomplished. I thank them for always supporting, affirming, and being there for me. Through their love, they have allowed me to achieve things that I could only dream of. To each of them I give my deepest and most sincere appreciation for enabling me to live the life that I have experienced and do the things that I have done. They all are truly wonderful and mean the world to me. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Summers. He has nurtured and pruned me into a student capable of this work through many years of patience. He has given me wonderful opportunities, precious advice, and often difficult, yet stimulating criticism over the years in my work. My ability to think both deeper inside of and further outside of the box is because of him. He is a caring advisor, wise friend, and brilliant engineer. He has sacrificed much in my behalf and for that, I thank him. I am grateful to Dr. Mocko for spurring many intellectual discussions and being available for advice in the past couple of years. His time, experience, and patience while I was growing into an engineer, is much appreciated. I thank him much for that. I am also grateful to Dr. Mears. Whether in research projects or classroom discussions, he has been a friend as well as a wise colleague. I thank him for his time, wisdom, and willingness to let me learn. I thank the generosity of my sponsors for funding my research. Environmental America Inc., Wright Metal Products Inc., and Michelin Tire Co. have each contributed greatly to developing my abilities as a designer and they all are much appreciated. I thank all the members of the AiD, EIM, and CREDO labs. They all have been great to work with and have contributed to my success, through intellectual and sometimes not so intellectual discussions and side by side work. To Ajit, Ben, Chiradeep, David, Jonathan, Pavan, Santosh, Sudhakar, Srinivasan and everyone else, I thank you and wish you the very best in all that you may do. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page TITLE PAGE ................................................................................................................................. i ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................................ iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1 MOTIVATION ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Engineers and Design ....................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Design Process Measures ................................................................................................. 2 1.3. Analysis of Design Processes ........................................................................................... 6 1.4. Case Studies in Design ................................................................................................... 15 1.5. Design Process Models ................................................................................................... 21 1.6. A Needed Representation ............................................................................................... 22 1.7. Representation Requirements ......................................................................................... 23 Chapter 2 EXISTING DESIGN PROCESS MODELS ................................................................. 26 2.1. Process Model Requirements ......................................................................................... 26 2.2. The Generic Design Process Model ............................................................................... 29 2.3. The TEA Model .............................................................................................................. 31 2.4. The Systematic Design Process Model .......................................................................... 33 2.5. The Clarkson Design Process Model .............................................................................. 36 2.6. Decision Based Design Process Model .......................................................................... 38 2.7. Process Model Summary ................................................................................................ 39 Chapter 3 REPRESENTING PROCESS MODELS ..................................................................... 41 3.1. Visualizing Process Models ........................................................................................... 41 3.2. Graphic vs. Non-Graphic Representation: An Example ................................................. 42 3.3. Graphic Representations ................................................................................................. 46 v 3.4. Selecting Process Representation ................................................................................... 49 3.5. The IDEF0 Scheme ........................................................................................................ 54 3.6. The PERT Scheme ......................................................................................................... 57 3.7. The Network Scheme ..................................................................................................... 58 3.8. The Proposed Scheme .................................................................................................... 59 Chapter 4 DESIGN ENABLER INFORMATION MAPS ............................................................ 62 4.1. DEIM Components ......................................................................................................... 62 4.2. Method for Constructing DEIM ..................................................................................... 65 Chapter 5 DEIM DEMONSTRATION ........................................................................................