The Design of Designing

This semester I’ve been taking Industrial Engineering 201: System Design. In the class we are divided into groups. Each group is given a design project for someplace on or near campus. Our group was given the project to improve Freshman Move-in day. We narrowed the cope of the project to the High rise dorms, and have been working on the project ever since. All along we have been studying how to manage a design project to develop the best solution in the time and in the constraints provided. The book we have been using to facilitate this is Product Design and Development by Karl Ulrich, Steven Eppinger, Steven Eppinger. If you want a taste of the cost of engineering textbooks follow the link. Since we are in the final parts of the project, we have finished with the book, hence the review.

Basically the book does a pretty good job at what it is supposed to do. It helps direct you down the path of product design and development. You start at finding a need, defining the need and constraints, and moving on from there. The book works best in an environment where an instructor fills in some info and provides additions reasoning and points of view. You can read it on your own, but you really need a project to get the most out of it. When we finish with the other book I’ll post a review of it. Now we have to finish the project report, and maybe they will implement it next year.