A hybrid systematic and conventional approach for the design and development of a product: a case study

S Sivaloganathan, T M M Shahin, M Cross and M Lawrence, Engineering Design Group, Department of Manufacturing and Engineering Systems, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK This paper aims to study the effectiveness of systematic and conventional approaches to design. A team of students who had been educated on the systematic approach to design was engaged in the design of a new producta disposable bicycle made out of paper. The students tried the systematic approach wherever they could use it and adopted the conventional approach whenever they encountered difculties with systematic design. When they adopted new philosophies or concepts not proven by either systematic or conventional models, some rework was needed. The work suggests that a hybrid approach is the most suitable one when developing new products with limited data available. This paper describes the different approaches and the approach undertaken by the students. 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Keywords: product design, systematic design, intuitive design, design studies, case study

1 Cross, N Engineering design methods John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, 2nd edition (1994) 2 Sivaloganathan, S, Evbuomwan, N F O, Jebb A and Wynn, H P Design function deploymenta design system for the future Design Studies Vol 16 No 4 (1995) 3 Sivaloganathan, S, Evbuomwan, N F O and Jebb, A A design system for concurrent engineering Concurrent Engineering Research and Applications Vol 3 No 4 (1995)

ystematic approach to design breaks down the design process into a sequence of transparent activities1 and each of these activities are further assisted by design tools which are generally called design methods. One such systematic approach is Design Function Deployment, DFD2,3. The underlying structure of DFD is given in Figure 1 where level 1 represents the design model consisting of six stages and level 2 consists of the design methods. In a computer implementation level 0 represents the initialisation where the chosen design methods from level 2 are incorporated with the stages in level 1 to form the process chain of the design process. This process chain creates the path followed in the designing of a product, unique and
www.elsevier.com/locate/destud 0142-694X/00 $ - see front matter Design Studies 21 (2000) 5974 PII: S0142-694X(99)00004-6 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain

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Figure 1 Structure of Design Function Deployment

appropriate in each case. The success of DFD depends on the design methods that are used in conjunction with its design model shown from left to right in level 1. A conventional approach to design on the other hand denes the problem as a Brief. It then collects as much relevant data to the problem and solution as possible to develop adequate insight. Conceptual solutions are then proposed and developed in an iterative fashion until they meet the specications. Models of subsystems are then built to prove the designs. The Engineering Design Group at Brunel University and the Centre for Design Research at Stanford University put a group of students to work on the design and development of a cardboard bicycle in order that they might build the prototype within 15 days. This was carried out as part of the Stanford postgraduate module Design Project Experience. The students had formal education in systematic design (advocated by DFD) and in design methods. This paper describes the way the product was designed and developed and identies the strengths and weaknesses of both systematic and conventional approaches to design. It identies a hybrid approach as a suitable way for new product development. Section 1 describes the problem, Section 2 describes the way it should have been handled using a systematic approach as per DFD, Section 3 describes the way it would have been handled in a conventional way, Section 4 describes how the team actually designed and built the product, and Section 5 discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the three approaches. Finally conclusions are drawn in Section 6.

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The problem

A successful entrepreneur turned cyclist has hypothesised that there is a market for disposable bicycles. The requirement is to construct a prototype of a disposable bicycle made out of paper that can be shipped in oversized shipping cartons. It can involve the words some assembly required to minimise the shipping volume. The use of non-paper materials is permitted but at a signicant cost, so they should be considered as a precious resource and used wisely. The bicycle should withstand the travel of four laps around a predened course. A design constraint uses a standard international shipping formula from UPS, FedEx, etc. Determine the dimensional weight in pounds by dividing the cubic size, in inches, of the shipment by 166: dimensional weight = L W H/166. Increase fractions of a pound to the next full pound. Bicycle cartons with a dimensional weight of greater than 166 lb or an actual weight of greater than 166 lb will be returned to the design team for modication. Each team will be assigned a client team and the clients requirements should also be taken into consideration.

Designing with the systematic approach

4 Akiyama K Function analysissystematic improvement of quality and performance Productivity Press, Ohio, USA (1991)

The systematic design within the taxonomy of DFD starts with establishing the stakeholders and their prioritised requirements. In the case of the disposable bicycle the stakeholders include the shipping companies, end users, the entrepreneur (to decide on price etc.) and any others who have some connection with it. Once these requirements and their relative importance ratings are established the specications of the product are drawn. Specications essentially describe the functions that the product should perform in order to satisfy the requirements. Specications also include the restrictions that have to be imposed on the product, which are called the constraints. Since the product under consideration is a variant of an existing product (a bicycle), a list of functions performed by the product can be easily established by performing a function analysis4 of a normal bicycle and then adapting it to a disposable bicycle. Once the specications are drawn the development of the solution can be started. Here the function family tree established in function analysis is analysed critically to identify the essential subsystems and the unnecessary subsystems for the disposable bicycle. Using these, subsystems can be proposed for the paper bicycle. A morphological analysis at this stage may reveal useful new conceptual solutions. These conceptual solutions are then developed as embodiments by specifying the constituent parts. These parts have to then be tested for strength and other properties that are necessary for their functioning individually and as part of an assembly. Often these tests are done with computer models, which may be veried with a prototype. Since the material used is to be mainly paper, little material selection is needed. However,

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material for non-paper components must be selected and tested at this stage. Subsequently, manufacturing methods also have to be established. Thus, the design process for the paper bicycle under the systematic approach under DFD should be as illustrated in Figure 2.

Designing under the conventional approach

The conventional approach often practised by designers, starts with the interpretation of the design brief. In order to understand the design brief a technical interpretation of it is written. Often at this stage, enough information is collected and a better insight is derived. Then conceptual solutions are proposed and often conceptual models are built. Inferences are then made about the individual concepts by experimenting with conceptual models. A set of assessment criteria is then developed to evaluate the various concepts. Using these criteria, one solution is selected for further development. At this stage a prototype is built and more tests are carried out. Some of these tests may include building and experimenting with computer models and relating the results with the results obtained from the prototype. An evaluation is also carried out at this stage to identify unresolved issues.

Figure 2 Design under approach the

process systematic

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The next stage in this process is to resolve the issues and improve the prototype. At the end there will be a working prototype representing the nal design. The design process for the paper bicycle in the Conventional approach can be described in the form of a ow chart as shown in Figure 3.

Design process as carried out by the students

The students started with individual brainstorming sessions. The results of these sessions were not that impressive. They also used spider diagrams to develop ideas unsuccessfully. Establishing a function tree for the new design seemed to be a good idea. They triedagain unsuccessfully. At this stage a parts analysis of an existing BMX bicycle appeared a suitable option for the starting point of the project. This parts analysis, a design

Figure 3 Design process in a conventional approach

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method, often used under systematic design to analyse and improve existing designs, was used to develop the parts tree shown in Figure 4. Once the parts tree of the BMX was complete, the essential subsystems needed for the disposable bicycle were proposed using the parts tree as a basis. This marked the starting point of the design process. A morphological analysis was then carried out to consider the alternative subsystems for the proposed bicycle. Figure 5 shows the morphological chart. From the morphological analysis, a harmonious and conforming solution was selected and the components were designed separately. The components thus designed were as follows: (1) (2) (3) (4) Frame with seat and seat bar. Wheels. Steering system. Propulsion.

Figure 4 Partial parts tree of a BMX bicycle

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Figure 5 Morphological analysis of concepts

4.1

Frame with seat and seat post design

The bicycle frame with seat and seat post provides for a number of functions. It gives a rigid platform to support the rider and also houses the drive mechanism. The frame provides the reactions against the axle, the total of which is equal to the weight of the rider plus the pedalling force. The frame also supports the force produced as a result of the front forks during a steering manoeuvre. The calculations of the dimensions for the members of the frame proved to be difcult without a nite element analysis, for which structural properties of various materials were required. Hence, a trial and error method with physical members was used for deciding the right dimensions for the members. The frame consists of four components shown in Table 1 and Figure 6. The main tube was essentially a tube with two holes cut for the forks and the seat post. A slot was cut at the rear to house the rear wheel and drive system. Reinforcement was added to the rear by gluing a section of tube inside the main tube. The same technique was used to reinforce the seat post where it housed the drive crank. Gluing a 6-in. diameter tube section into the tube perpendicular to the main tube reinforced the front of the main
Table 1 Main frame

Component

Made from

Length (in.)

Diameter (in.)

Wall thickness (mm) 6 5 N/A 5

1 2 3 4

Main tube Seat post Seat Bearing surface

Tube Tube Laminated corrugated card Tube and corrugated card

47 27.3 N/A 3

8 4.5 N/A 6

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Figure 6 Main frame assembly with the drive system

tube. This, along with the fork-bearing surface, eliminated deformation of the main tube. The seat post was glued in place and secured with a smaller cardboard tube through both main tube and seat-post.

4.2

Wheels

The wheels provide a number of functions within the bicycle. Firstly, they must be sufciently robust to support the total force exerted on them by the axles. They must rotate in order to allow motion and propulsion. They therefore must be circular and have a high friction surface around the periphery to provide traction. They must also provide a cambered surface to allow the bike to tilt during cornering. The wheels were fabricated from 10 layers of corrugated cardboard laminated with a 72 lay-up. The layers were secured using wood glue. The layers were angled to give the maximum possible strength from the grain of the card. A diagram of this conguration is shown in Figure 7.

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Figure 7 Cardboard lay-up procedure for wheels

The wheel diameters were chosen to t the tyre diameters available from the local cycle shop. The wheel rims were made from strips of hard board, which were glued around the perimeter. Three strips each having a different width were used. This gave the wheel the required camber as shown in Figure 8. The tyres were then glued on top of the rim. Finally, cardboard tube bushes were glued into the centre of the wheels. Trials with these bushes showed heavy friction and PVC tubes were then used as the axles and bushes.

4.3

Steering system

The forks and handlebars provide the steering function. The direction control of the rider is transmitted to the steering column by rotation of the handlebars, which in turn rotate the column within the main frame. The forks were built from two sections of cardboard tube as shown in Figure 9.

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Figure 8 Part cross section of wheel showing reinforcing rims

Figure 9 Fork assembly

The nal fork assembly consists of a 6-in. diameter tube joined to a 4.5in. diameter tube joined by two smaller diameter tubes glued in place perpendicular to the main tube.

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The handlebars made from 2.5-in. diameter cardboard tube, simply tted into a hole in the top of the forks. Trials with the system revealed that the friction at the interface between the fork and the main frame was too high. Therefore, a circular piece of transparency lm was placed between the mating surfaces to reduce the friction.

4.4

Drive system

The cogs for the drive system were cut from an MDF sheet of 18-mm thickness. The rear cog was attached to the wheel using ve lengths of dowel as shown in Figure 10. They were driven by a knotted rope drive to act like a chain. The knots were placed at intervals of 50 mm from each other. In order to provide a free wheel action the tooth prole had a sloping relieve side and sharp engaging side. As trials with the drive showed slipping, groves to lower the rope were cut in the teeth to alleviate this problem. The main drive cog was glued to the crankshaft using a keyway and an MDF key. The cranks were also cut from MDF as shown in Figure 11.

4.5 5

Full assembly

The nal bike assembly with all the subsystems is presented in Figure 12

Advantages and disadvantages of the approaches

Evaluating the effectiveness of the three approaches needed a set of criteria. The following seven characteristics were seen as the requirements for evaluation. (1) Clear starting point. Clear starting point is an important aspect because this avoids the waste of time at the early stages when the

Figure 10 Rear drive cog assembly

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Figure 11 Crank and pedal assembly

Figure 12 Final bike assembly

(2)

insight of the problem and solution space is low. This permits the development of insight while working on the project. Clear steps. Clear steps provide for the planning of the project. This is particularly useful when the time allowed for the project is limited.

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(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

Requirement of market data. This is the data on the shapes, forms, sizes and prices of different materials available in the market. This is very important because a design, which may be optimal in several perspectives, may have to be tailor made and hence become very expensive. Requirement of properties. This relates to the data on material properties such as, Youngs Modulus, surface roughness and friction, etc. The properties required may not be known at the beginning of a product and this can aggravate the situation. Reliance on models and tests. Tests with physical models are carried out for two reasons: (a) to ensure compliance with the laws of physics and nature and (b) to estimate the performance characteristic, which is difcult to do otherwise. Reliance on computer models. Because physical models are difcult to make there is now an increasing tendency to use computer models. It is therefore important to know which model uses this technique more. Knowledge capturing. This is one of the most important aspects of the design process because the information captured not tells us which considerations were used but also which considerations were not used in the various decisions made. This will enable an explanation of the performance to be made and thus provide ways of improving the product at later stages in time.

5.1

Systematic approach

The Systematic approach to handle this problem is given in section 3. If the approach is considered according to the above criteria the following observations can be made: (1) Clear starting point. The starting point under the systematic approach is to establish the list of stakeholders and their requirements. These are collected to establish the specications of the product together with their constraints. Clear steps. In the systematic approach this means the process chain with computer modelling and analysis. Requirement of market data. This becomes a standard requirement in the systematic approach because the computer models and their analysis needs them. Without this data, it is not possible to perform any analysis. In the case of the paper bicycle the lack of data on paper and different available forms almost inhibited the use of systematic methods. Requirement of properties. This relates to the data on material properties such as, Youngs Modulus, surface roughness and friction, etc.

(2) (3)

(4)

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(5)

(6) (7)

These form the other component of data required for analysis. The lack of this group of information on materials for the paper bicycle was another reason preventing the systematic approach for design. Reliance on models and tests. In systematic design most of the tests are carried out with computer models and the nal conrmation tests are only carried out with physical models. Reliance on computer models. Most of the tests are carried out with computer models. Knowledge capturing. Knowledge capturing is much easier with systematic design because each stage in the design process has a specied output.

5.2

Conventional approach

The conventional approach to handle this problem is given in section 3. If the approach is considered according to the above criteria the following observations can be made:

(1)

(2) (3)

(4)

(5) (6) (7)

Clear starting point. The starting point in the conventional approach is the need statement or brief. It does not have a clear format and hence understanding the need statement takes quite a lot of time and effort. Clear steps. There are no clearly dened steps. The designer is expected to plan his work. Requirement of market data. Even though this data is important the method relies on working around what is available in the market and hence does not create serious problems. Requirement of properties. Here again the data is important. But the absence of it is not crucial because estimates can be made from experimentation. Reliance on models and tests. The conventional design approach relies heavily on building models and testing them. Reliance on computer models. Computer models form part of the testing programme. Knowledge capturing. Special effort has to be taken to capture design knowledge.

5.3

Approach by the students

The students started with a systematic approach and deviated from it wherever they found it difcult and the conventional approach proved easy. If the approach is considered according to the above criteria the following observations can be made:

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(1)

(2)

(3)

(4) (5)

(6) (7)

Clear starting point. The students approach used the parts tree analysis as the starting point for the design. This is somewhat similar to the function structure advocated by the systematic approach. Clear steps. The students tried to follow the steps dened by DFD but found it difcult. The reason being the lack of availability of market data and the properties of the materials. Requirement of market data. The students tried to collect data, but managed to procure only the available materials within the twoweek period. Requirement of properties. The students could nd a limited information only during the two-week programme. Reliance on models and tests. The students relied heavily on testing the physical model and wherever this was insufcient they had problems. Reliance on computer models. Very limited computer modelling was done because of the lack of required data. Knowledge capturing. Special effort had to be taken to capture design knowledge.

5.4

Discussion

Comparison of the three approaches shows that the systematic approach is easy and comfortable when the problem is clearly dened and the required data and information are available. This facilitates computer modelling and analysis and thus eliminates the necessity for extensive physical modelling. However, the approach becomes difcult with limited data. The conventional approach on the other hand permits the use of limited data and uses physical modelling and experimentation as the principal tools for developing the design. In the absence of a lot of information this method seems to be more efcient. The students used a hybrid systematic and conventional approach. For instance establishing the parts tree is a systematic approach. Using the structured layering and other methods in the fabrication of wheels were systematic methods that worked. When details were not known, as in the design of the main frame, they brought the materials, built the models and tested to prove the design. Wherever they did no testing and had limited knowledge, they encountered failures. Therefore, it is safe to conclude that the systematic approach is easy only when enough data is known and the conventional approach is easy when limited data is known. A hybrid approach is the most suitable when developing a new product. This permits the benets offered by both approaches.

Conclusions

The design process adopted by a team of students trained in the systematic approach to design was engaged into the design of a new product. Their

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approach followed the easy methods in both systematic and conventional design methods. Analysis revealed that with a lack of the required data, the systematic design approach had limited success whilst the conventional approach was effective in these circumstances. It is therefore safe to conclude that a hybrid systematic and conventional approach is the easy way for the development of new products.

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