T. Alink

Different notions of function: results from an experiment on the analysis of an existing product

Academic debate has long recognised that function is a problematic concept, for which many different notions exist. While progress has been made in relating these different notions theoretically, designers in practice still struggle with the concept of a function and a functional breakdown, even though these ideas form a key part of many established design methodologies. This paper describes the findings of an experiment which explores how different engineers understand the notions of function and functional breakdown in the context of design by modification. The experiment was conducted with a group of 20 design engineers, who had all received or provided the same education at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. A second experiment was run with a group of 18 engineers at another university. The subjects were asked to analyse how a hydraulic pump works, summarising their understanding in a function tree. The findings demonstrate the fluidity of notions of function between different individuals expressing both goals and behaviour as functions. Many participants had a syntactic notion of function, expressing functions as verb–noun pairs, but failed to apply this consistently. These observations highlight the need for pragmatic approaches for handling the concept of function.

Support of Design Engineering Activity for a Systematic Improvement of Products

Design research in the past few years has revealed several lacks of the “classical” design methodologies. The predominantly systematic-analytic, on deductive procedure based design methodologies are still basis for research and education but are judged to be little applicable in a real designing environment [4, 5]. Hence, the trend of design research has put the engineer in the middle of focus as a problem-solving individual. This paper introduces an approach for a successful proceeding in solving complex engineering problems based on the established Contact and Channel Model (C&CM). The problem solving process begins with a C&CM system analysis providing the information needed for understanding the relations between form and function on the adequate level of abstraction. Through a widespread understanding, a basis for creative, intuitive filling of the gaps in the problem ground is created.

Variations in functional decomposition for an existing product: Experimental results

Abstract This paper describes the findings of an experiment on how different engineers understand notions of function and functional breakdown in the context of design by modification. The experiment was conducted with a homogenous group of 20 design engineers, who had all received the same education. The subjects were asked to analyze how a hydraulic pump works and summarize their understanding in a function tree. The subjects were given either the hydraulic pump itself (with part of its casing removed) or a maintenance drawing that showed a section cut of the pump. This paper shows typical outputs of the designers. It discusses the different notions of function that the subjects had and the differences in the function trees they generated. The paper focuses an eight detailed analyses to show the range of approaches the subjects took.

Different Function Breakdowns for One Existing Product: Experimental Results

This paper describes the findings of an experiment on how different engineers understand the notions of function and functional breakdown in the context of design by modification. The experiment was conducted with a homogenous group of 20 design engineers, who had all received the same education. The subjects were asked to analyze how a hydraulic pump works and summarize their understanding in a function tree. The subjects were given either the hydraulic pump itself (with part of its casing removed), or a maintenance drawing that showed a section cut of the pump. This paper shows typical outputs of the designers and discusses the differences between the subjects’ approaches and resulting function trees; and points to typical mistakes the subjects made.