Engineering Design and the Product Life Cycle: Relating Customer Needs, Societal Values, Business Acumen, and Technical Fundamentals

Design, within the context of engineering, is a term that is sometimes difficult to define. Design can be innovative, impressive, and earthshattering, but it can also be observed in the building of simple devices using everyday materials in a classroom environment. This text examines the concept of design, where success means that the designers fulfilled the established requirements, stayed within the specified constraints, and met the evaluation criteria as optimally as possible. Along the way, the reader will walk through an example design process (no, there is not a single, universally accepted design process) that presents relevant terminology and will examine design in a broader context through means of the product life cycle, where a product is followed from its initial definition to the end of its life. Finally, the text attempts to the question of what is good design by exploring some of the fundamental principles associated with design.

PhD, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science Ohio Northern University