Contents 1 Design Process 2 Introduction 3 Existing Product/Service with Consumer 4 Price- feature value proposition 5 Weight is the Greatest Enemy 5.1 For example 6 Describe the function of each component 7 Efficiency 8 Combine Components 9 TRIZ 10 Trade Off Efficiency for Effectiveness 11 What is a good design idea? 12 Try to expose all parts of design as early as possible to criticism 13 If you do not want to expose the design early?

Design Process

Introduction

By looking at the various design process used by others and

modifying them with my own thinking and experimentation,

I have reached the following design process.

I attribute much of it to Buckminister Fuller but,

if you look in literature left behind by Fuller,

you will not find most of it and whatever you find will be worded differently.

So, if the process fails, I am the person to be blamed.

Existing Product/Service with Consumer

Start the design process by assuming that the customer already has a product or a service with which he is living happily.

Whatever you design has to give him a much better deal before he will begin to consider what you have to offer.

Price- feature value proposition

Define a price- feature value proposition that you want to achieve.

An example:

If we are to design a new solar cooker for a urban/ near urban consumer,

she has a Gas cooker (LPG/Propane/Butane/ Natural Gas) that costs a maximum of Rs 900 ( US$ 16 at 1 US$ = Rs 50).

This cooker does everything that she wants whenever she wants.

In a month a typical urban household spends upto Rs 300 (US$6 per month) for fuel.

In around Pune in Maharashtra, India, sunlight is available for cooking for a maximum of 200 days a year.

In those 200 days, it can cook lunch almost everyday but cooking breakfast and dinner requires a great deal of ingenuity.

In my assessment, which is pretty subjective, a good solar cooker design should deliver the cooker

at a price range of Rs 250 (US$ 5) to Rs 3,000 ( US$ 60).

The closer you are to the price of Rs 250, easier it will be for the customer to accept what you offer.

The closer you are to the upper price range of Rs 3,000 fewer will be conversions to your product.

Weight is the Greatest Enemy

Analyse the existing product in this way which is derived from Fuller's belief that

weight is the greatest enemy of engineering design:

Break down the existing product into its various components.

Weigh each component and rearrange the list so that it is in the descending order of weight.

For example

If we were to design a new transistor radio and were analysing an existing one,

the heaviest component would be its loudspeaker followed by its batteries etc.

The outer case would be much heavier than the integrated circuits.

The tuning coil might be slightly heavier than the circuit board.

The indiviual IC would be the lightest components.

Describe the function of each component

Describe the function of each component in the reordered list.

Efficiency

Efficiency is Output divided by Input.

If there is no input, efficiency is the highest i.e. it is indeterminably high.

Therefore the first goal of design is to eliminate as many components and functions

that do not lead to the direct end function sought to be achieved.

Focus on functions to be eliminated first as components will be automatically eliminated as the functions are eliminated.

Combine Components

Look to combine components to reduce their existing combined weight.

Do not look for marginal reduction in weight. Boldly look to reduce weight by a factor of 10.

In almost all cases this is possible.

In case of the transistor radio, by eliminating a loud speaker and

replacing its function by a pair of earphones it was possible to eliminate its heaviest component.

It also allowed huge reduction in the weight of the batteries and their case as

very little power was needed to power the ear phones.

By combing the on-off switch, the volume control, and the dial for tuning, further reduction in weight happened.

TRIZ

There is a design philosophy called TRIZ that is finding increasing acceptance in automotive engineering.

One part of the philosophy is that everything has already been invented.

Ignore it as databases of existing inventions are a closely guarded secretes of Triz practitioners.

The second part of the philosophy is that all design is a trade off between competing factors.

They have a matrix of forty such factors and such factors are publicly known.

You can research and use such factors as you like or

use a very simple list of just two factors viz. efficiency versus effectiveness.

Trade Off Efficiency for Effectiveness

Ask yourself what constitutes efficiency in the design and

what design possibilities would open up if

you deliberately set a goal for lower efficiency and higher effectiveness.

For example the first generation of Solar Cells were entirely focused on using better and better quality of crystalline silicon as that lead to higher conversion efficiency.

The second generation solar cells use amorphous silicon that has a much lower conversion efficiency

but the entire solar cell is much more effective as amorphous silicon is much cheaper to produce compared to high quality crystalline silicon.

What is a good design idea?

How do you know what is a good design idea?

Over years I have come to the conclusion that whenever you think you have a good design idea,

spend a fortnight looking for an implementation of that very idea in another design space.

If the idea is really good, it would have already occurred to others and they would have implemented it in their design space.

If it is not implemented by somebody else in another design space, it probably is not a good idea

Try to expose all parts of design as early as possible to criticism

Seek criticism by all including enemies, friends, knowledgeable persons etc.

Listen to all but make your own decisions.

It is critical that the price-feature value proposition is exposed as early as possible and to as many persons as possible.

Ignorant people have robust common sense and can often point to other existing products that serve the same market and that already match/ exceed your proposition.

Carefully check out what they have to say and satisfy yourself that you are meeting a serious design goal!

If you do not want to expose the design early?

Not all designers and certainly not in all circumstances can designers early expose their price-feature value proposition.

If you are in such a situation, what can be done to ensure that you are meeting a good design goal?

Conduct a thought experiment.

Ask if you were to offer the price-feature value process to the target audience, would sixty percent of it buy your product without any fuss?

If the answer is Yes, you have a goal to work towards.

If the answer is No, rework the price-feature value proposition.