Module 5
Module 5
and Environment in
Design Engineering
MODULE 5
DESIGN FOR PRODUCTION, USE, AND
SUSTAINABILITY
Assembly refers to the way in which the various parts, components, and
subsystems are joined, attached, or otherwise grouped together to form
the final product.
• Handles parts or components (i.e., retrieves and positions them
appropriately relative to each other)
• Inserts (or mates or combines) the parts into a finished subsystem or
system
DESIGN FOR USE
• Reliability
• To an engineer, reliability is defined as “the probability that an item will
perform its function under stated conditions of use and maintenance for a
stated measure of a variate
• we can properly measure the reliability of a component or system only
under the assumption that it has been or will be used under some
specified conditions.
• the appropriate measure of use of the design, called the variate, may
be something other than time.
DESIGN FOR USE
• Maintainability
• Maintainability can be defined as “the probability that a failed component or system
will be restored or repaired to a specific condition within a period of time when
maintenance is performed within prescribed procedures.”
• Designing for maintainability requires that the designer take an active role in setting
goals for maintenance, such as times to repair, and in determining the specifications for
maintenance and repair activities in order to realize these goals.
• This can take a number of forms, including:
• selecting parts that are easily accessed and repaired;
• providing redundancy so that systems can be operated while maintenance continues;
• specifying preventive or predictive maintenance procedures; and
• indicating the number and type of spare parts that should be held in inventories in order
to reduce downtime when systems fail.
DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Costs are often broken up into the categories of labor, material, and overhead
costs.
• Labor: costs include payments to the employees who build the designed
device, as well as to support personnel who perform necessary but often
invisible tasks such as taking and filling orders, packaging, and shipping the
device.
• Labor costs also include a variety of indirect costs that are less evident
because they are generally not paid directly to employees.
• These indirect costs are sometimes called fringe benefits and include health
and life insurance, retirement benefits, employers’ contributions to Social
Security, and other mandated payroll taxes
• a simple starting point for estimating costs is to keep good records or the
activities needed to build our design’s prototype.
LABOUR, MATERIALS, AND OVERHEAD
COSTS
Materials include those items and inputs directly used in building the device,
along with intermediate materials and inventories that are consumed in the
manufacturing process.
• A key tool for estimating the materials cost of an artifact is the bill of materials
(BOM), the list of all of the parts in our design, including the quantities of each
part required for complete assembly
• The BOM is particularly useful since it is usually developed directly from the
assembly drawings, and so it reflects our final design intentions.
• Materials costs can often be reduced significantly by using commercial off-
the-shelf materials rather than making our own.
• This is because outside vendors have the machinery and expertise to make
very large numbers of parts for a lot of customers
LABOUR, MATERIALS, AND OVERHEAD
COSTS
You can also protect graphical symbols, logos, computer icons, user
interface graphics, even typefaces with a registered design.
• The design must be new and have individual character over prior design
registrations in order to be registered
Ethics in Design
Words like ethics, morals, obligations, and duty are used in a variety of ways in everyday life,
including seemingly contradictory or unclear ones
Ethics
• 1: the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation
• 2a: a set of moral principles or values
• 2b: a theory or system of moral values
2c: the principles of conduct governing an individual or group
moral
• 1 a: of or relating to principles of right or wrong in behavior
• 1 b: expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior
• These definitions define ethics as a set of guiding principles or a system that people can use to
help them behave well.
CODES OF ETHICS: WHAT ARE OUR
PROFESSIONAL OBLIGATIONS?
• There are some points to make regarding the professional societies and
their codes.
• the differences in the codes reflect different styles of engineering
practice in the various disciplines much more than differences in their
views of the importance of ethics.
• the professional societies, notwithstanding their promulgation of codes of
ethics, have not always been seen as active and visible protectors of
whistleblowers and other professionals who raise concerns about specific
engineering or design instances.
• the codes of ethics we have described are not necessarily the same as
those in all parts of the world.
ETHICS: ALWAYS A PART OF
ENGINEERING PRACTICE