The engineering process is a sequence of steps that engineers go through to design and build an item. There are many different models of the engineering process, with fewer or more steps. However they all follow a similar pattern. In this article, we’ll review a 9-step engineering design process that engineers employ to address specific issues.
The first step of the engineering design process involves defining the problem. This is an essential step, as a failure to define clearly and completely the problem could stall projects at a later time in the design process. Sometimes the solution to a specific issue will naturally arise during this step. For instance when students were asked to design a way to secure their lunch hooks to the desk’s bottom, they came up with an easy solution of attaching a hook to bottom of the desk.
In the next step, the requirements analysis is carried out to determine the specifics of the customer’s requirements and resources. This will help you make a list of the project’s requirements and constraints. For example the case where a customer requires their new product to hold 20 pounds The engineer will determine how much weight the system can hold and what size the hook must be to ensure it is able to hold all of the student’s lunches.
The next stage, also known as design the synthesis or design planning, is where the specifics are set and the precise design of the final product is developed. This is the process of establishing the inputs and outputs of the various modules that comprise the system, as well as their interconnections. The tools used during this phase include Gantt and Pert charts as well as spreadsheets for loading resources as well as sketches, drawings and prototype models.
