|  |
Guide to The Mechanical Design Process TemplatesA series of templates are being developed for the 4th edition of The Mechanical Design Process.
We are making these available at this time to get your comments. All we ask in return is that you complete the questionnaire below for each template you use. Comments received prior to January 1, 2008, will have an impact on what will appear in 4th edition. Comments after this time may have an effect on the templates available to the students.
Template Questionnaire
Many of these templates have form fields in them to make “filling in the blanks” easy. This includes Text Form Fields and Drop Down Form Fields. To edit these fields display the Forms Toolbar (View, Toolbars, Forms). Unlock the form to edit (right icon that looks like a lock). Be sure to relock it or the drop downs won’t work.
Those template marked with an “*” are Excel worksheets (6, 13, 14). They automatically calculate important design information. These are still being debugged but appear to be working properly.
The discontinuous numbering is an indication that other templates are being developed.
Other examples are being developed so all the templates will have at least one example.
1 Product Decomposition
The goal is to dissect existing products to learn about how things are built. Additional rows can be added as needed. The example of the Irwin Clamp also is used in items 6 21 below.
Other examples at http://gicl.cs.drexel.edu/wiki/Category:Disassembly_Notes
2 Team contract
This is a blank form for teams to establish goals, performance expectations and performance expectations.
3 Meeting minutes
This is a simple form for keeping meeting records. It has areas for the agenda, discussion, decisions made and action items.
4 Team health inventory
A questionnaire with seventeen questions to assess team health and room to add more items as needed.
6 * Plastics ID
This is an Excel spread sheet that can be used to identify the types of plastics used in products that are decomposed (see item 1).
7 Design Report
This is not a template but a guideline for an engineering design report. The items borrowed heavily from one used by the EE department at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. http://www.msoe.edu/eecs/ee/seniordesign/EE408ReportFormat.pdf
8 Product Proposal
This template has all the elements needed for the proposal of a new product. The example is taken from an actual proposal.
11 SWOT
The “Strength-Weakness-Opportunity-Threat” or SWOT analysis is widely used in business to evaluate situations. It is also useful in engineering design.
12 Technology Readiness
This is a simple analysis to determine the readiness of a technology for use in a product. A low “readiness” implies that the project is research and development rather than design, a high readiness technology is product-ready.
13 * Plastic part cost calculator
This spreadsheet allows the calculation of the cost to produce a plastic part. It is based on the combination of a number of models and includes such factors as material, size, complexity, surface finish, production volume, wall thickness and tolerance. It is fairly accurate and can give a good feel for the effect of design changes, but not intended for actual cost estimation.
14 * Machined part cost calculator
This spreadsheet allows the calculation of the cost to produce a machined metal part. It is based on the combination of a number of models and includes such factors as material, size, complexity, surface finish, production volume, tolerance, and machine tools needed. It is fairly accurate and can give a good feel for the effect of design changes, but not intended for actual cost estimation.
15 Morphology
A morphology is a basic method to develop new concepts from a basic understanding of the functionality.
16 Contradiction
Contradictions help tease apart problems.
19 Test Report
This is a simple format to report the results of testing.
21 DFAssy
This is a questionnaire that develops Design for Assembly (DFA) score. Since this is a relative score, it is only good for the comparison of two designs for the same product. The examples are for two designs for hand clamps.
22 FMEA
This Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) template helps organize the information needed for an FMEA study.
26 Change order
This is a simple form for a change order.
27 Patent prospectus
This form contains all the fields needed to write a patent prospectus.
|
|
|
2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education