TY - GEN
T1 - Empirical studies of functional decomposition in early design
AU - Booth, Joran W.
AU - Bhasin, Abhinav K.
AU - Reid, Tahira N.
AU - Ramani, Karthik
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2015 by ASME.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - This paper explores functional decomposition in early design. In the first part of this study, we explore how the three most common methods (top-down, energy-flow, enumeration) affect concept generation for novice design teams (n=25). We found that nearly all the features in the final concept could be mapped to the function diagram, though not all the functions mapped to the actual concept. This suggests that there is not much change in system functionality between these two phases, despite being separated by a few weeks. We also found that teams who used top-down and energy-flow performed nearly the same, and teams who used enumeration performed worse than those who used energy-flow. Based on these results, we recommend using either top-down or energy-flow, but not enumeration in early design. We also observed that teams used the diagramming process to reach a consensus and support team communication. The second part of this study evaluates design reports (n=78) from industry engineers taking a distance learning design course. Even though roughly half of the reports used functional decomposition, there was no correlation between using functional decomposition and final design quality as measured by various grade components. We also observed that half of the function diagrams were tree diagrams. This supports prior findings that a top-down, tree-based approach is more intuitive for engineers. Together, these results suggest that functional decomposition is helpful for team communication, but show no direct correlation with design outcome. We also recommend training strategies for teaching decomposition based on differences between the two datasets.
AB - This paper explores functional decomposition in early design. In the first part of this study, we explore how the three most common methods (top-down, energy-flow, enumeration) affect concept generation for novice design teams (n=25). We found that nearly all the features in the final concept could be mapped to the function diagram, though not all the functions mapped to the actual concept. This suggests that there is not much change in system functionality between these two phases, despite being separated by a few weeks. We also found that teams who used top-down and energy-flow performed nearly the same, and teams who used enumeration performed worse than those who used energy-flow. Based on these results, we recommend using either top-down or energy-flow, but not enumeration in early design. We also observed that teams used the diagramming process to reach a consensus and support team communication. The second part of this study evaluates design reports (n=78) from industry engineers taking a distance learning design course. Even though roughly half of the reports used functional decomposition, there was no correlation between using functional decomposition and final design quality as measured by various grade components. We also observed that half of the function diagrams were tree diagrams. This supports prior findings that a top-down, tree-based approach is more intuitive for engineers. Together, these results suggest that functional decomposition is helpful for team communication, but show no direct correlation with design outcome. We also recommend training strategies for teaching decomposition based on differences between the two datasets.
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U2 - 10.1115/DETC201547865
DO - 10.1115/DETC201547865
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84979019815
T3 - Proceedings of the ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference
BT - 27th International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology
PB - American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
T2 - ASME 2015 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, IDETC/CIE 2015
Y2 - 2 August 2015 through 5 August 2015
ER -