The concept generation activity is one of the lampposts of the engineering design. It provides a forum for designers to apply creativity and contribute their personal flair. It also represents the time when technology is chosen or develop to fulfill the customer needs. One danger in any concept creation process is the bias of preconceived solutions. Preconceived solutions usually occur early in the process of solving design task. They are the engineer’s idea of what a product should do, not the customers. Decomposition or breaking down a problem in to the smaller parts is one fundamental principle that helps us overcome these dangers. Many ideas are readily apparent to simple, small scope problems. Decomposing and recasting a complex product system into such smaller pieces can greatly enhance the number of concepts. Generation of concepts requires insights that come from a fundamental knowledge of how the world behaves and how we can estimate the behavior. These insights are followed by a great deal of perspiration and hard work can greatly advance the solutions by considering the synthesis of analogous and feasible technologies. The two types of methods of concept generation: INFORMATION GATHERING AND BRAIN STORMING: These methods focus on the combination of obtaining knowledge of possible techniques with the generation of ideas from the minds of the designers. BIASING METHOD: In this method they add “bias” to the search or solutions by using physical insights and documented design principles. By directing search for solutions, a greater number of ideas may be generated for particular aspects of the design problem. The process begins with a review of the customer needs, highlighting the primary needs that are the initial focus. All the needs must be satisfied through concept generation and the process begins with considering the most important need first. Based on customer need focus, the design task is decomposed into sub-problems that may be more easily understood and solved. These sub-problems are of three forms: functional models, product architecture and product portfolio. The focus is on what the product must do, not how it will do it. A functional decomposition may be used to generate form solutions to each of the product functions that are, transforming function to form. Alternative layouts and interfaces may be developed from the product architecture information. Alternative integral or modular concepts may be developed from the portfolio choices. This approach will lead to a broad number of solution ideas for each of the product functions. These solution principles may be applied to alternative layouts that are created. The next step in the concept generation process is to combine the solution ideas per product function into concept variants, that is, alternative designs. We are essentially adding and connecting together solutions to each of the functions by creating geometry of the solutions, their interfaces to each other. These methods are needed that helps in generating concepts for product functions and combine them into alternative product ideas. Formal concept generation methods may be classified, broadly, into two categories: intuitive and directed. The intuitive category relates to the methods that focus on idea generation from within an individual or group of individuals. The intent of such methods is to remove barriers to divergent thinking so that new connections and features in a product may be visualized. By removing these barriers, the environment of idea generation may be filled with conditions that promote creativity. Directed method uses a systematic, step by step approach to search for a solution. These methods rely on technical information, expertise and guidelines to seek solutions to technical problems. They force solutions to be determined along a particular path, although the final solution is not readily apparent at outset. The first method of concept generation is information gathering. This activity entails the dynamic search for data that will contribute to the technology, physical principles, or industrial design of a product. Information gathering begins the study of concept generation methods due to its critical stature in the process. A patent search is essential in understanding the current technology in a product domain. It is also useful for seeking analogous ideas from the products that solve similar functions. Information should be gathered from analogies, the world wide web, benchmarking, and people. Analogies consist of a similar product or artifact that operates in a different domain. It is similar because it implements an architecture or function that is in common with the product being designed. Analogous products include power tools, sound rooms, automobile, aircraft, and food processors. By studying these solutions, we can develop analogous solution principles. Other categories of information sources include benchmarking, people and the world wide web. These also provide a wonderful forum for harvesting ideas that may be used to generate further concepts for a particular product development. Brainstorming is an intuitive method of generating concepts. It focuses on product function and architecture, where team members communicate ideas verbally during a set of time period. All tean member are encouraged to be open and uninhibited during the initial sessions of brainstorming. The overall aim of brainstorming is to obtain several concepts that might work as solution principles to a piece of the design problem. Advantage The ability of a set of individuals to collectively build on each other to generate ideas that would not arise individually. Team member will piggyback and leapfrog each other. Piggybacking creates building block ideas to words, body language, statements and concepts stated by a Team member. Leapfrogging on the other hand results in divergent in the responses. Each team member brings different expertise, skills, and personality to a group effort of piggybacking and leapfrogging. Brainstorming taps into this diversity to create, quickly, a large number of high level solutions. Disadvantage The right idea may not come at the right time. Group discussion may side track or inhibit the original ideas. Brainstorming is a powerful technique for generating concepts. A committed team creates ideas together, which possibly triggers further ideas. THE GUIDELINE FOR BRAINSTORMING SESSION: Designate a group leader, to prevent judgment and encourage participation by all. The facilitator should not contribute directly, but rather direct and record. Form the group with 5 to 15 people, usually no more and no less. Less gives inadequate ideas; more can break down the group into multiple conversations towards participation. Brainstorm for 30 to 45 min. The first 10 min are typically devoted to problem orientation and familiarity. The next 20 to 25 min will see a sharp increase in ideas. During the final 10 min, a trickling of idea will occur which should be encouraged. Don’t confine the group to expect in the area. The only way to obtain new ideas is to introduce new knowledge and experimental backgrounds. Depending on the goals of a brainstorming session, the individuals may enter a session with a set of ideas. Avoid hierarchically structured groups, bosses, supervisors and managers should not be included in many of the sessions. One effective way to record the results of a brainstorming session as it happens is by memory mapping. The facilitator starts with a clean sheet of paper, writes the problem statement in the center of the paper as two words, and draws a box around it. Then ideas are generated to solve the problem, they are recorded quickly, say with two or so words, with circle drawn around them. Each new idea to solve the initial problem is connected to the original problem statement. As an idea is refined, or sparks another idea, these new ideas are connected to the idea that sparked them. Ideas that are all basically the same concept should branch out of the originally proposed concept. Entirely different concepts should have their own branches emanating from the problem statement. If the problem statement is refined into a new one, this new form can be recorded by entering a new problem statement and drawing a box around it. Problem statements in boxes distinguish the concepts in circles. The new problem statement should be connected to the concept that sparked the reformulated statement by a directed arrow. Memory maps help a facilitator visualize this process who can then redirect the process back on to the original problem. The memory map also serves as an effective visual documentation of the brainstorming session. It is called a memory or mind map, as if a single person creates all of the ideas individuals. Brain ball is one form of brain storming that meets the goals. In brain ball the participants from a standing circle where everyone in the circle may see each individual. The process then begins by introducing a hypothetical ball that is passed from that is passed from individual to another individual, assuring that all the participants are included at some point in the passes. A participant may pass the ball to any other member, as quickly and spontaneously as possible without the process becoming unwieldy. In the first round of the game, no speaking is allowed. An addition throwers and receivers should actively play their roles without introducing ancillary motions or theatrics. In the next round, a ball is introduced again by a facilitator and the thrower adds a sound. A receiver restates the sound and passes the ball to some another participants by stating a new sound. Members should not concentrate on thinking of new sounds in advance, or they will be distracted from receiving the ball. After a few minutes of passing the ball and sound, the facilitator introduces a second ball to an unoccupied member in the circle. Two balls and spoken sounds then pass around the circle simultaneously. Participants must pay close attention to pass or receive one of the balls, maintaining their relaxed attitude and peripheral vision. The process continues until the team experiences the full activity responding spontaneously to multiple balls and sounds. The facilitator ends the second round and then introduces a word or concept to the group. The facilitator throws the hypothetical ball to a member of the group with a solution or response to the concept. The member receiving the hypothetical ball restates the response and passes the ball to another participant with a new response. The member repeats the response, and the process continues. A second and possibly third ball is to be introduced to the game as the time proceeds. Multiple balls with piggyback and leapfrog responses are then simultaneously passed until the brainstorming reaches a repetitive stage. The facilitator can then introduce a new concept, sub problem, solution, or idea generator to create a new round of brainstorming. The participants may also be divided into sub circles to continue new rounds, with redistribution occurring over time. This process is an effective means to add the sketching dimension to concept generation. Industrial designers, on the other hand, are quite adept at this dimension and should be used as facilitators of the 6=3-5 method. After a few sessions of the 6-3-5 method, oral brainstorming is typically applied to discuss, refine, and advance the concept variants as a group. The typical brainstorming process is executed at this stage; however, the search is now directed with the concepts recorded by the 6-3-5 method. This directed search for concepts greatly accelerates the refinement of concepts, bringing them closer to ideas that may be evaluated and formalized. The 6-3-5 method may be summarized by the following process steps: Arrange team members around a table. Each member writes/ describes/ sketches three ideas for the primary product functions, usually five or less. The ideas are expressed in clearly distinguished areas of the paper, usually on oversized white media such as butcher paper. After t minutes of work on the concepts, members pass their ideas to the person on their right. For the next t minutes, team members modify the ideas on the sheet, with the option of adding an entirely new concept, not contained on their original idea sheet. Passing of the idea sheets continues until a member’s original sheet returns and the round ends. With sufficient time intervals between rounds, five rounds are repeated. After generating ideas for each of the primary product functions, the entire process is repeated to develop alternative layouts and combined concept variants that utilize a summary of the solution principles generated for each function. Postpone the ideas are accumulated and summarized. Directed search or logical concept generation methods are used to develop ideas in a deliberate, step by step, comprehensive fashion. Direction is provided by design or physical principles that are previously known. These principles, in conjunction with knowledge of physical effects and technology, drive the process toward particular types of solutions. SYSTEMATIC SEARCH WITH PHYSICAL PRINCIPLES: The procedures for generating concepts from physical principles are as follows: Models are the primary function or subsets of function of a product as a black box, with material, energy or signal flows. For this black box, determine possible physical principles that can convert the input to the output for the product functions. This step will require the gathering of information from a variety of sources. Write general relationships for the physical principles that relate a measured effect to independent variables. Vary each of the design variables to generate a concept for solving the product functions. Develop a physical realization of the variable changes with sketches. Each of the sketches is a possible concept idea. This procedure may be applied to any of the function combinations from the product function structure. Intuitive choices are the primary functions of the product, as weighted by the customer needs, and the function chains that form potential modules of the product. SYSTEMATIC SEARCH WITH CLASSIFYING SCHEMES: A procedure for executing directed search with classifying schemes may be listed as follows: Model the primary functions or subsets of functions of a product as black boxes, with material, energy, or signal flows. For these black boxes, choose the classification schemes that closely relate to the functions and customer needs. For one of the classification headings, generate solutions to the functions. Document the results in matrix, where the rows are functions and the columns are solutions, organized by classification headings. After ideas are exhausted for a given heading, repeat the process for the next heading. As stated for direct search with physical principles, this procedure may be applied to any of the function combinations from the product functional model. Intuitive choices are the primary functions of the product as weighed by the customer needs and the function chains that form potential modules of the product. SYSTEMATIC SEARCH WITH CLASSIFYING SCHEMES: A procedure for executing directed search with classifying schemes may be listed as follows: Model the primary functions or subsets of functions of a product as black boxes, with material, energy, or signal flows. For these black boxes, choose the classification schemes that closely relate to the functions and customer needs. For one of the classification headings, generate solutions to the functions. Document the results in matrix, where the rows are functions and the columns are solutions, organized by classification headings. After ideas are exhausted for a given heading, repeat the process for the next heading. As stated for direct search with physical principles, this procedure may be applied to any of the function combinations from the product functional model. Intuitive choices are the primary functions of the product as weighed by the customer needs and the function chains that form potential modules of the product. The theory of problem solving was developed by Genrikh S. Alsthuller in the former U.S.S.R, beginning in the late 1940s. The basic of this theory is to discover that the pattern exist in the patent claims; many of them are based upon the same working principles. The patents were classified into five categories: The first two categories were designated as routine design, meaning that they don’t exhibit significant innovations beyond current technology. These categories are basic parametric advancement and change in a configuration. The last three categories, on the other hand represents designs that included inventive solutions. These three categories are identifying conflicts and solving them with known physical principles, identifying new principles and identifying new product functions and solving them with known or principles. Based on these patent studies, Altshuller observed a number of trends in the historical invention. Some of the key observations, in the context of product design, include the following: Evolution of engineering systems develops according to the same patterns, independent of the engineering discipline or product domain. These patterns may be used to predict the trends of future evolutions in a product domain. They may also be used to direct the search for new concepts. Conflicts are the key drivers for product invention. Principles for eliminating conflicts are universal across product domains. Application of these principles implies that compromise is unacceptable. The systematic application of physical effects aids invention, since a particular product team does not know all physical knowledge. These observations lead to the structure of TIPS for solving inventive problems. A number of components comprise this structure. For the purpose of this text, we consider three primary components: Laws of engineering system evolution, The physical effect, and The solution principles. Physical principles on the other hand, document the knowledge of the physical world from many diverse fields. Design principles in turns are heuristic rules for eliminating conflicts in design task, creating a high level concept that is possible inventive solution. The final step is to refine the concepts, from the principles and effects, into a concrete geometry. A systematic method for this assembly and continued ideas creation is known as morphological analysis or morphological charting. Morphological analysis is a tool that provides a structured search and combination of concepts in product design. The process of executing this analysis is as follows: Consider each product function in the functional model and each module of the product architecture. List the function or module as of a row matrix. In the first column of the row matrix, enter the current solution to the function or module, if the product exists. Apply concept generation methods and record the concepts in the columns of the matrix for each function. Map the range of solutions per each function to a classification scheme, such as energy domains. Judge if the solutions are too focused or cover a good breadth. If the solutions are too focused, carry out further sessions of the intuitive and directed concept generation. When a good breadth of ideas and technologies are realized in the morphological matrix, combine the ideas into diverse concept variants that seek to satisfy the entire product specification. We create a morphological matrix and label each row with a product sub function. Next we immediately fill in the first column of the matrix with current solutions. For each product and identify the component that satisfies the function. After forming the initial matrix, we may black out functions that are not part of the redesign effort. This action is usually carried out for reasons. The product functions solution components cannot be changed, usually for regulatory or contractual reasons. The product functions solution components are not part of the redesign effort, and it is not a part of the redesign effort, and it is not a real concern to the customer or too expensive to invest resources, and so forth. Support functions might not be considered at this stage in the development process. We have range of possible solutions to each product function, we need to combine solutions. A large number of combinations are possible; however, issues exist in geometrical and physical compatibility and function sharing.