The Engineering Design Process

Engineering design is one of the processes normally associated with the entire business or enterprise. from receipt of the order or product idea. 10 maintenance of the product. and all stages in between (Figure 2.6). The design process requires input from such areas as customer needs. materials. capital, energy. time requirements. and human knowledge and skills. Two important societal concerns that an engineer must take into account are legal and environmelltal issues. Every business must operate within the law that governs their business. When designing. it is important that the engineer understand that legal issues may affect the designed product. Safety laws related to automobiles are an example of how government legislation can affect a design. Governmcnt regulations related to the cnvironment may also havc a bearing on the final outcome of the design. For cxamplc. the cmission requircments on an automobile cngine havc a great effect on the final design. An cxample of human knowledgc input is an cngineer's knowledge of graphics. mathematics. and the sciences. Such knowledge is used by the engineer to analyze and solve prohlems. An engineering design involves hoth a process and a product. A process is a series of continuous actions ending in a panicular result. A product is anything produced as a result of some process. As the design of a product or process is developed. the design team applies engineering principles, follows budgetary constraints. and takes into account legal and social issues. For example, when a building is designed. engineering principles arc used to analyze the structure for loads: determine the structure's cost. based on the materials 10 be used. the size of the structure. and aesthetic considemtions; and create a design that adhcres to the local laws. Graphics is an extremely important pan of the engineering design process. which uses graphics as a tool to visualize possible solutions and to document the design for communications purposes. Graphics or geometric modeling using CAD is used to visualize, analyze, d(X~ument. and produce a product or process. In fact. geometric modeling it,<;elf could be considere a process. geometric modeling produces final design solutions, as well as inputs to the production process, in the form of wrnputer databases. As a product. geometric modeling is a result of the engineering design process. 

The Engineering Design Process
Bertoline-Wiebe-Miller:
Fundamentals of Graphics Communication,3/e
The McGraw-Hill Companies,2001