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Engineers Create Artefacts and Processes through Design - Essay Example

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"How Engineers Create Artefacts and Processes through Design" paper states that modification of the design process will enable designers to move to a sustainable practice of engineering. Design is a central part of the practice of engineering as its projects are exclusively devoted to engineers. …
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Engineers Create Artefacts and Processes through Design
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Extract of sample "Engineers Create Artefacts and Processes through Design"

Engineering Design Design can be defined as a process through which human creativity and intellect are used to create useful artifacts. Engineering design is seen as a subject of this wider concept as performance, underlying science and quality objectives play a significant role. Engineering design is defined as a loosely structured and open ended activity which entails learning processes, decision making, problem identification as well as representation. Engineering designers try to make decisions that will meet expected specifications while at the same time comply with all constraints. A designer has to come up with new options if a design created is not acceptable to the user. The traditional engineering design approach always aims to solve problems. This involves meeting functional requirements subject to certain economic and technical constraints. Approaches have been proposed to be used in guiding, organizing and facilitating the engineering design process. Engineers have been seeking rigorous and logical structures that can be used to develop satisfactory designs that are acceptable to customers. Examples of proposed approaches include Quality Function Deployment, Taguchi’s theory of robust design, design for manufacture and Deming’s principle of quality control (Freund, et. al, 2012 317). However, in some cases, conflict answers may come up when these approaches are used. It is, therefore, essential that these approaches are assessed individually, so that engineers can identify their strengths and weaknesses when used in different applications. Proficiency in engineering designs has great significance in the new economy. Economic globalization and pressure to introduce effective and better products faster and at affordable costs make engineering design very important (National Research Council, 2002 4). Previously, engineering design practices were not widely used and the role of engineering designers was not really understood. This had negative impacts as it usually led to development of designs that were not accepted by customers or users of the products. Information technology has had large impacts on engineering design. Globalization of markets and changing nature of businesses together with impacts of information technology on businesses have led to changes in the economy and this also tends to affect engineering practices. Empirical methods are not adequate to enable a business compete in the current competitive global market. Products need to be created and introduced faster and this comes with demand for low cost and high performance. Today, engineers have the benefit of information technology, extraordinary tools and advanced engineering environment. This helps them have a deeper understanding of the industrial process and they are able to keep up with the unprecedented demand. Engineers can use these advancements in their field to develop knowledge bases that enable creation of reliable, efficient, innovative as well as cost effective designs. Engineering design is a complex process that requires incorporation of various aspects which range from life-cycle analysis to product quality. Engineers should, first of all, understand the behavior of various system elements as this will assure customers of functional performance of the designs created (National Research Council, 2002). A fundamental concept of design is the normal configuration of a structure which means general alignment of various components that will allow the design to generate its own principle of operation. This concept defines the direction of the process of solving a problem by addressing key issues. Analysis and testing play a huge role in modern engineering design as they provide guidance and steps for constructing an acceptable final product. Engineering design is also guided by rules of thumb and tacit understanding, specific to technological configurations and local situations. Most engineering designs tend to be complex, and this may require involvement of experimental processes. These processes comprise creating simple conditions where assumptions underpinning explanations are true. This allows simple explanations to be used to guide the process of design. Engineers are able to gain more knowledge and they can proceed from these simple creations to models and field tests and finally to real world applications. These simple conditions reduce chances of experimental dead ends and they also improve final designs (Meijers, 2009,p. 367). Engineering design entails deriving processes or components in order to meet specific needs. It is a process of decision making in which various subjects are applied so as to convert resources and meet a stated objective. Fundamental elements of the process of design include setting up objectives, analysis, construction, synthesis and evaluation. An important point that engineers need to understand is that the process of design is entailed to face various economical, social, ethical, reliability, safety and aesthetical constraints. A successful engineering design will need a strong understanding of the fundamental concepts. This means that an engineer would need to have a solid background in the subject of mathematics as well as basic sciences (Gul and Ogot, 2004, p. 3). Engineering design involves application of technical knowledge of these subjects. It also requires application of knowledge from non-technical fields, such as statistics or even economics. These fields will enable an engineer to synthesize systems or products that meet specific needs and solve particular problems. Problems in engineering design are ill-structured and open- ended. This means they usually have a number of acceptable solutions and these solutions cannot be found by just applying mathematical formulas in a structured manner. Engineering design is a process that can be implemented successfully to solve various engineering problems. Process of engineering design can be divided into five steps which are: definition of a problem, conceptualization, design and evaluation, detailed designing and testing and finally production. Engineering design is an interactive process and it may require a repetition of some steps based on the outcomes. Primary interactions take place between conceptualization stage and preliminary design and evaluation steps. A design may change due to these interactions that take place between various steps. Designers will be able to explore solutions in depth when they go through all these steps. This will leads to creation of high quality designs. These steps synthesize a wide range of solutions to a class of engineering design problems that involve transformation of ideas and forces specified as inputs and outputs. A large number of solutions generated can be explored, and this will help designers obtain a thorough overview and detailed understanding of designs (Gagnon et.al, 2010, p. 3). Modification of the design process will enable designers to move towards a sustainable practice of engineering. Design is a central part of the practice of engineering as its projects are exclusively devoted to engineers. A sustainable design process can be established if characteristics of the design process are clearly defined. This will present a comprehensive overview of the design process as well as various steps involved. This will enable designers to follow these steps in practice and it will also provide additional insight on typical approach to decision making in engineering design. References Freund, E. L. Karwowski, W. Salvendy, G. and Spohrer, C. J. (2012) Advances in the Human Side of Service Engineering Design. CRC Press: FL. Gagnon, B. Leduc, R. and Savard, L. (2010) From a Conventional to a Sustainable Engineering Design Process: Different Shades of Sustainability. [online] Available at: http://pages.usherbrooke.ca/gredi/wpapers/GREDI-1009.pdf (Accessed 29 April, 2013) Gul, K. and Ogot, M. M. (2004) Engineering Design: A Practical Guide. Trafford Publishing: CA Meijers, A. (2009) Phylosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences. Elsevier: MA National Research Council. (2002) Approaches to Improve Engineering Design. National Academic Press: Washington, DC Read More

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