Title: 3.1 Phase 3 Generate Alternative Designs
Course: ATEP - MMT: Module A: > Section: PHASE 3 GENERATE ALTERNATIVE DESIGNS

3.1.1 Generate Alternative Designs

Do not stop when you have one solution that might work. Continue by approaching the problem in new ways. Describe all of the alternative solutions you develop in the engineering notebook. The greater the number of ideas that you have, the better the chance of finding the ideal solution.

3.1.2 Methods of Thinking

In Phase 3, designers will work on creating a variety of alternative designs.  The  ideas can be totally different, or they can be improvements to your first idea. There is almost always more than one solution to a design problem, and good designers are rarely satisfied with the first idea that pops into their minds. You can suggest several ideas—each one of which might do the job—but try hard to think about better ways.  Again, this is where a team environment is helpful. Team members from differing backgrounds and behaviors (DISK) will create and be able to choose from a greater number of ideas. Watch the slides Trees and see how different people can "see" the product from their own point of view.

Trees.wmv

Sometimes an idea may just pop into your head. Usually these sudden ideas are followed by the “Aha!” response (“Aha! I’ve got it!”). This insight comes from being thorough in researching the problem and from being creative in thinking about the problem from many different angles. Even when you are not consciously thinking about the problem, your brain may still be working on it.

All humans do a lot of thinking to carry out their day to day activities.  However, each of us use different methods of thinking in order to obtain the best possible results.  Many studies have been done to determine the methods that we use to accomplish our tasks.  Some of these and who they are attributed to are listed here:

- Creative Problem Solving
- Six Thinking Hats by Dr. Edward de Bono
- Productive Thinking Model by Tim Hurson
- Mind Mapping by Tony Buzan of England
- Brainstorming by Alex Osborn
- Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono
- SCAMPERR by Michael Michalko and Bob Eberle

The next pages will review some of these methods to assist in your innovative thinking.

3.1.3 Brainstorming

Brainstorming is the generation of ideas.
The objective is to obtain a large quantity of ideas.  The quality of the ideas is not a consideration!

A team environment is most often the best way of coming up with alternative designs. It brings into play individual insight from research, creativity and personal experience to resolve the problem.  Involving team members with both differing backgrounds and behaviors (DISC) tend to offer a greater variety of ideas from which to choose.

During brainstorming, each person in the team can suggest ideas.  Sticky notes (shown on the right) are a good way to gather ideas from each team member.  After each individual writes down several ideas, they are displayed together and reviewed by the team. One person writes all the ideas down in the engineering notebook, and no one is allowed to laugh at or criticize the ideas, no matter how foolish or unusual they might seem (team norms). The brainstorming process is used to help everyone think more creatively. Team members should feel free to share any wild ideas. Sometimes, one person’s wild idea will open up someone else's mind to a totally new approach. An advantage of brainstorming is that your mind begins to make unusual connections.

This is perhaps the most challenging part of the design process. We often seize on one idea, judge it to be satisfactory, and then stop thinking creatively and stop searching for the best design. In the creative sphere, other designs can help validate the best solution by providing alternatives to check against. In this process, positive and negative features of the designs are examined, and in this way the best design is determined.

3.1.4 SCAMMPERR

SCAMMPERR  is an idea generating tool used to help develop new products from existing products.  It is a mnemonic for nine different approaches that will help you find new ways to improve a product or service.  The techniques enables  creative thinking about how to do things differently and in ways you may never have thought of before.  By applying one term at a time and noting the possible alternative in the engineering notebook, a list of optional ideas can be quickly added to your solutions.  The terms/ideas may not necessarily be all practicable, but can serve as a starting point for new product creation.

Letter | Term | Meaning
S | Substitute | Substitute — components, materials, people.
C | Combine | Combine — mix with other additional functions or aggregates; duplicated the service, integrating functionality.
A | Adapt | Change from, alters function using a portion of another element of an assembly of a unit.
M | Magnify | Increase, make it enormously larger or smaller; higher; exaggerating, add great functionality or additional benefits added.
M | Modify | Raise or diminish or scale, alters shape, varying attributes (color, feel, acoustic, ...)
P | Put | "Put to another use."  Find another use (s), find another connection to use, specify the scope to.
E | Eliminate | Remove items, components, reducing to core function, simplifying.
R | Rearrange | To place, alters the order permute components or units, varying speed or scheme of consequences.
R | Reverse | Return, change the inner to the outside, place it on the head, find opposite of use.
Limited time is a good reason for implementing this technique.

3.1.5 Iteration

An iteration is the act of repeating one process with the aim of approaching a desired goal, target or result.  Each repetition of the process is also called an "iteration," and the results of one iteration are used as the starting point for the next iteration.  Reiteration is making an iteration again and again.  The image to the right shows how designers reiterate the phases in the Informed Design Process.

While generating alternative designs using the various thinking methods, you will need to complete multiple iterations of each of the phases and at the same time review the constraints and trade-offs. Perhaps the material that you need to manufacture the product is not available, the machine that you need to make a part does not exist yet or the tolerances are too narrow.  Cost of the materials and processes is also a major consideration.  Investigate alternative ideas to adapt to any trade-offs.

3.1.6 Verification of Solutions

Review the problem statement along with the constraints to verif y how well the designs fit the problem and conform to the specifications and constraints.  After many new ideas have been proposed, the team should review them all and the best ideas are developed further. Using a design matrix, at this point, will help to determine how well the attributes of each design will resolve the problem.  Again, an example of a design matrix is shown to the right.