Forensic Systems Engineering

Appendix AThe Engineering Design Process: A Descriptive View

CHAPTER MENU

1. A.1 Design and Development
2. A.1.1 The Design Process
3. A.1.2 Customer Requirements
4. A.1.3 Interactive Design
5. A.1.4 Intermediate Testing
6. A.1.5 Final Iteration
7. A.2 Forensic Analysis of the Design Process
8. References

When we think of design, great artists and builders come to mind, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Berthe Morisot, or Christopher Wren. We imagine that design is mostly creativity and certainly it is that, but there is much more to it. True, the essence of design is creativity. No standard in the world can mandate or bestow creativity. You either have it or you don’t, but creativity is brought to life through a design process that is well identified. For example, Michelangelo followed a detailed process in both sculpting and painting, having to make his own pigments from scratch; having to design his own scaffolding; and having to put together a competent team (King, 2003). As another example, in engineering, textbooks such as that of Arora (1989) describe a formal and mathematical approach to design.

The Six Sigma philosophy calls the process of design “Design for Six Sigma” and defines it roughly in these steps: define, measure, analyze, detail, and verify (Six Sigma, 1998). In similar terms, the standard ISO 9001 (2015), too, offers a sequence of detailed requirements to accomplish design: from the planning phase through the phases of inputs, outputs, controls, reviews, verification ...