The FSD should have the following information:
1. Project Description and background: A description of the project, and what is
the expected level of completion to be accomplished. A high-level system
block diagram should be included to aid in presenting the overall concept.
2. Customer Needs: The customer needs and requirements should be listed
including their relative importance and priority as completed in the class
assignment.
3. Product Specifications: The customer needs are then mapped into project
metrics, and preliminary values assigned. Use a Needs/Metrics table to show
the linkage of customer needs and measurable metrics. You should include
preliminary target values for each specification. A complete FSD should also
include a description of each metric and the reason that the team has
chosen this measure for the project.
4. Linking of the Project Requirements and Product Specifications: Each
critical customer need must have an associated product metric to insure that
these critical program and customer requirements are being met. This can
easily be shown on the Needs/Metrics chart illustrated in class.
5. Summary: As with any written document, you need to include a summary
section which ties all the other sections together and reviews the significant
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Concept Generation.
Winter 2015
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Concept Development Phase
Phase 1
Concept
Development
Phase 2
Phase 3
System-Level
Detail
Design
Design
Phase 4
Testing and
Refinement
Phase 5
Production
Ramp-up
Development
Plan
Mission
Statement
Identify
Customer
Needs
Establish
Target
Specs
Generate
Product
Concepts
Select a
Product
Concept
Test
Product
Concept
Set
Final
Specs
Plan
Downstream
Development
Perform Economic Analysis
Benchmark Competitive Products
Build and Test Models and Prototypes
Concept Development
Exhibit 2 Chapter 3 Ulrich & Eppinger
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The Competency Matrix
Knowledge
You know
Awareness
You Know
You Don't Know
Winter 2015
Conscious Competent
•Facts and data
•Past experience
•Observations
•BOF’s
Unconscious
Competent
•Skills you possess even
though you don't know it
•Data you know that you
don't know you will need.
You Don't Know
Conscious Incompetent
•Information that needs
to be researched.
•You fill find people with
the required knowledge.
•You will avoid making
assumptions without data
Unconscious
Incompetent
•This is the area to avoid.
•This is where you get
really surprised.
•Don't assume that not
knowing won't hurt you.
4
Concept Generation
• The idea of doing a structured
process to generate design concepts
is one of the most difficult concepts to
teach.
• What makes it so hard?
• Have you ever done a task only to find
out later that there was an easier way?
Why did you choose the harder
method?
• What are some example of breakthrough, out of the box thinking?
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Concept Generation
Why emphasize early concept
generation?
“Thorough exploration of alternatives early in the
development process greatly reduces the
likelihood that the team will stumble upon a
superior concept late in the development process
or that a competitor will introduce a product with
dramatically better performance than the
product under development.”
Ulrich and Eppinger
Concept generation answers the question of “how” the
product will satisfy the customer needs as mapped into
the functional specifications.
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6
Iterative Process of Concept Generation
Chosen
Solution
Target
Specification
Concept generation
Concept screening
Concept scoring
Concept testing
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Advantages of Early Concept Generation
• Reduce the likelihood of costly
problems later in the development
process.
– Early concept generation is a very
affordable way of looking at a lot of
alternatives.
– Develops confidence in the team that you
are not going to be surprised later on.
–A product solution without an alternative is not
an acceptable solution-Winter 2015
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• What are some of the problems you
may encounter w/o a structured
approach to concept generation?
– Won’t consider many alternatives.
– Influenced by the most dominant
person on the team.
– Don’t consider product concepts from
other companies or unrelated products.
– Team doesn’t get a “buy in” to the final
proposal.
– May miss entire an entire category of
solutions.
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Home Depot Theorem
Time spent in Project Planning
Complexity of
the problem
Distance to the
nearest
Home Depot store
X
Home Depot Corollary
Time spent on the
actual Project
=
=
Complexity of
the problem
Distance to the
nearest Home Depot
store
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•
Concept Generation is a 5 step process
1. Clarify the problem. Break it down into
sub-problems, and prioritize.
2. Search externally for existing solutions =
BOF’s.
3. Search internally, using individual and
group resources.
4. Explore systematically, using concept
fragments.
5. Reflect and evaluate.
• This is not necessarily a linear process, it
is usually iterative.
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• Step 1 Clarify the problem
– Start with the Customer needs analysis
and Functional Specs as inputs
– limit the scope of the problem. Don’t
try to “boil the ocean”.
– Prioritize the critical subsystems where
you can differentiate your design. You
will only have a few areas where you
will need to apply the formal process.
– Be sure to list the critical assumptions
you are making about the problem.
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• Decomposition of design concepts
The goal of problem decomposition is to help
identify the few critical functions for your design.
Every Product Function has a series of inputs and
outputs that describe the behavior of the
function.
inputs
outputs
Functional
description
Take a “systems” approach to design
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• Hand held Nailer
The design team decomposed the problem into
several subproblems: Energy Source, Material
(nails), Initiate action
Energy
Store or
Accept
External
energy
Nails
Store
Nails
Initiation
action
Sense
initiation
Winter 2015
Convert
Energy to
Translational
energy
Isolate
Nail
Apply
Translational
Energy to nail
Driven
Nail
Trigger
tool
14
• In-class exercise #1
– Develop a decomposition function
diagram for one of the design
subproblems for your project.
– What would be some of the inputs and
outputs.
inputs
outputs
Functional
description
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• Step 2 Search Externally
– Be a pirate! Take the best ideas that
others have developed and build on
them.
– You don’t have to do everything
perfectly. It only takes a couple of areas
of differentiation to have a success in
the market.
• What technology allowed Honda to become
a leader in transportation vehicles.
– Reliable engines.
• HP inkjet printers
– An ink that could be boiled to produce droplets.
– Colored inks.
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• Search Externally
– Interview lead users.
– Consult industry experts.
– Search Patents.
– Search published literature.
– Benchmark related products.
– For you Concept Generation and Selection
document, I want you to show evidence of
at least two areas where you have
researched some external inputs for
concept generations.
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• Step 3 Search internally
– Be careful to avoid assuming you know
more than you do about a subject.
– Be careful to not over-simplify a
problem
– “For every complex problem there is a
simple, easy-to-understand, wrong
answer.”
– Complex problems usually have
complex solutions
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• Search internally
– Use your personal and team knowledge
and creativity to generate solution
concepts.
– Some guidelines for generating concepts:
• Suspend judgment. Don’t be quick to jump to
conclusions.
• Generate a lot of ideas. Don’t spend time
evaluating ideas, just capture them.
• Welcome “out of the box” ideas. Don’t worry
about feasibility during the initial
brainstorming.
• Use graphical and visual methods to capture
ideas. Quick drawings and sketches are
great.
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• Step 4 Explore Systematically
– At this point the team should have a
collection of concept fragments—
solutions to the subproblems. The goal
of systematic exploration is to
synthesize a complete solution from the
concept fragments.
– The problem is that not all fragments
will work together in a final solution
space. Your job is to come up with
practical concepts from all the pieces.
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• Systematic exploration
– There are two tools that can help the
team in navigating through the maze of
concept fragments:
– 1. The concept classification tree, and,
– 2. The concept combination table.
– Concept classification tree helps to
divide the solutions into independent
categories,
– And the concept combination table
helps in the selection of possible
fragments.
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• Systematic exploration
• concept classification tree
Fuel-air system
Chemical
Explosive System
Oil pressure system
Hydraulic
Store or
Accept
energy
Electrical
Pneumatic
Wall outlet
Batteries
Fuel Cell
External air system
Internal air system
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• Concept classification tree
– What are we trying to accomplish with
the tree?
• Prune less promising branches quickly.
• Identify independent approaches to the
problem.
• Find where gaps may exist in the concept
fragments.
• Refine the thought process for a particular
branch.
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• Concept combination table
– This is a tool to link fragments into
complete solutions.
– The first step is to identify the general
functional diagram for the anticipated
solution.
Convert
Energy to
translational
energy
Winter 2015
Accumulate
Translational
energy
Apply
Translational
energy to nail
24
• Concept combination tables
– Step 2 is to put all concept fragments
into a column of the combination table.
This helps to identify if concept
fragments are missing or redundant.
– Step 3 is to link concept fragments into
complete solutions. This also shows
where more evaluation or exploration is
necessary.
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• Concept combination tables
• Step 1- add fragments to the table
Convert Electrical
energy to
translational
energy
Rotary motor
with
transmission
Accumulate
Energy
Spring
Linear Motor
Moving Mass
Apply
translational
energy to nail
Single impact
Multiple impact
Solenoid
Push nail
Rail gun
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• Concept combination tables
• Step 2- connect fragments into solutions
Convert Electrical
energy to
translational
energy
Rotary motor
with
transmission
Accumulate
Energy
Spring
Linear Motor
Moving Mass
Apply
translational
energy to nail
Single impact
Multiple impact
Solenoid
Push nail
Rail gun
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• Concept combination tables
– As you can see, there are a lot of
combinations available. (4 x 2 x 3)
– Many obviously don’t make sense and
can be quickly eliminated.
– However, you often find a new idea by
looking at the possible combinations of
concept fragments.
– Remember, this is an iterative process,
you may have to go back to square one
quite often.
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•
Step 5 Reflect and Evaluate
1. Are you confident that the solution
space has been adequately explored?
2. Do you have alternate functional
diagrams?
3. Can you decompose the problem in
an alternate way?
4. Have you considered external
sources?
5. Have everyone’s ideas been
considered and integrated into the
process?
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Concept Generation-Summary
– Develop innovative solutions that will
meet the target specifications that have
been determined by the needs of the
customer.
– Find design concepts that will
differentiate our solution from the
competition.
– Insure that you haven’t overlooked
some critical areas of the design.
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• Homework assignment
– Complete the FSD. Due on Tues Jan
27rd. Link it to your team management
page and email a copy to me.
– Email me with >5 concept alternatives
for your actual project. We will discuss
these in class on Thursday.
– Information for the next lecture is in
chapter 7, Concept Selection in Ulrich
and Eppinger or in the class notes.
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