Set-Based Design

1. Set-Based Design

2. Product Development Process Concept Development System-Level Design Detail Design Testing and Refinement Production Ramp-Up Planning Concept Development Process Mission Statement Development Plan Identify Customer Needs Establish Target Specifications Generate Product Concepts Select Product Concept(s) Test Product Concept(s) Set Final Specifications Plan Downstream Development Perform Economic Analysis Benchmark Competitive Products Build and Test Models and Prototypes

3. Review

4. Creativity/Brainstorming Creativity is a divergent thinking skill in which we postpone judgment and try to see a situation from as many different perspectives as possible. Brainstorming is a term used for the creative generation of many ideas.

5. What Do We Do With Brainstorming? • How quickly did you select an idea for your device? • How many ideas did you generate before you got there? • With brainstorming the idea is to go back and look at all of the ideas that you generated and generate many feasible ideas. (not to decide on an idea and then make a brainstorming list)

6. TriggersTools to bump yourself out of mental ruts. • Other’s Shoes – Reconsider the problem from the perspective of a plumber, civil engineer, physician, child, attorney, basketball player, etc. You can keep this close to your personal comfort level by picking roles you know something about, like plumber perhaps, and then expand to more fanciful ones, like princess. • Nature – How does nature deal with this issue, or how would you do it if you were Mother Nature? • Opposite – How would you solve the opposite problem (from “cut down a tree” to “grow a tree”)? Or, consider the opposite of some of your ideas (from “cut with a saw” to join with “hot glue”). • Random – Use random words, pictures, movie titles, professor names to generate more ideas. • Analogy – Consider what has similar function but different appearance (automatic clothes washer to washboard), what has similar appearance but different function (washboard to cheese grater), or what has a similar name and different use (bottle cap to baseball cap)? • Craziest Idea – take the craziest idea and try use the kernel to get to a practical solution (“Cut down a tree with scissors” to “cut with large hydraulic shears”). • Boundaries/Constraints – Remove, adjust, or explore the boundaries of the problem. (If the problem is a better way to wash clothes, what about recycling the old shirt into a new shirt instead of washing? Does it have to be “wash” or can it be “clean” or “deodorize”?) • Anthropomorphize – Consider yourself to be the piece of equipment or process. Or consider yourself a molecule flowing through the system. (For “Why is this part failing?” think- “Am I getting hot anywhere, where do I feel the stress?”) • Combine – Take different ideas and see what happens if you add them together, or combine them in some other way (Problem: “wash clothes” – combine “spray with a hose” and “pound on a rock” to “spray with wet rocks”)

7. Now what? • Typically, use a concept selection technique to select one or two ideas for continuation. • Set-based • Point-based

8. Courtesy Durward Sobek, Montana State University

10. Rather than pick the best!

14. Sobek and Ward define 11 principles that provide the framework for set-based design • Define the feasible regions • Decompose the overall design into functional elements • Develop feasible regions for performance and constraints • Communicate the sets of possibilities • Describes communication between functional groups (and with Chief Engineer) • Attempt to develop a full understanding of each others capabilities and needs • Don’t communicate your best idea (or your best idea at one operation state)... Provide description of several options over a wide operation range • Look for intersections • Find regions where feasible designs from the different functions overlap • Negotiated between functional groups with the CE • Attempt to optimize total system, not individual parts

15. Sobek and Ward continuation of 11 principles that provide the framework for set-based design • Explore trade-offs by designing multiple alternatives • Develop alternative solutions • Develop a solid understanding of alternatives using the method that makes most sense: • prototyping • analysis • Impose minimum constraint • Limit the design with only the necessary constraints • Example: provide broad functional requirements to suppliers • Narrow sets gradually, balancing the need to learn and the need to decide • Develop understanding before making a decision • Recognizes that design is a decision based process: • determine preferences • generate alternatives • generate expectations • CE driven

16. Sobek and Ward continuation of 11 principles that provide the framework for set-based design • Pursue radical and known solutions in parallel • Pursue unproven high pay-off solutions along with low risk backup solutions • Establish feasibility before commitment • Stay within set once committed • Control by managing uncertainty at process gates • Seek robustness against physical, market, and design variations • Create designs that work regardless of what the rest of the team decides to do

17. Rating alternative designs (Quick decision matrix)