Designing Complex Products with Systems Engineering Processes and Techniques

429

Appendix 1

Product Development

Case Studies

OBJECTIVES

1. To understand phases, issues (customer, technical, and business), and man-

agement of a product development process

2. To understand automotive product design, assembly, and business issues by

studying the available information on the Smart car

METHOD

Part I

Read the Ingersoll Rand Cyclone Grinder development story from the following:

Ingersoll Rand: Barbecues, Drag Tests, Medieval Warriors; and Slowing Down

to Speed Things Up, chapter on Cyclone grinder development story in Liberation

Management by T. J. Peters. New York: Harper & Row, 1992.

1. Gather information about models of and parts in the Cyclone Grinders by

conducting an Internet search.

2. Answer the following questions:

a. Develop a project activity and milestones chart showing all the key

activities involved in the development of the Cyclone grinder (use for-

mat from: Systems Engineering and Analysis by B. S. Blanchard and

W. J. Fabrycky, 2011, p. 652).

b. List customer needs of the grinder (as a customer/user would mention

his/her words).

c. Generate a list of functional requirements of the grinder (as an engineer

would specify).

d. Draw a product decomposition tree of the grinder showing its systems,

subsystems, and components within each system.

e. Describe key concepts/ideas that contributed to the successful design of

the Cyclone grinder.

430 Appendix 1

Part II

1. Read the following two articles on the Smart car:

Siekman, P. 2002. The Smart Car is Looking More So. Fortune, April 15,

2002, pp. 310[I]–310[P].

Brooke, L. 2008. Little Car, Big Job. Automotive Engineering (aei),

February, 2008, pp. 76–77.

2. Also, review information on Smart car available in the following websites:

http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/

http://www.smartusa.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile)

http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/ctm/idm/cases/smart.html

3. Answer the following questions:

a. List customer needs of Smart car.

b. Provide comparison of product specications and available features of

Smart car with two other vehicles made by different vehicle manufac-

turers that can compete with it in the U.S. market.

c. Describe important product design/development issues in creating the

Smart car including safety-related changes.

d. Describe key business issues in involving suppliers at the assembly

location.