Product Design

5310 Class Product (project)

* Class will focus on building a medical instrumentation product.
* Will follow a product development life cycle approach.
* Class time will be divided between lecture and lab
◦ Lecture is to learn circuits, explain development steps, etc.
◦ Lab will be implementing product

* Product will continuously be made during semester.

How is the Course Changed?
* Class is either in F242 lab or normal class room.
◦ Class will meet in normal class room unless specified otherwise.

* Literature review is replaced with project report.

Notes
* Software simulation is available for ECG
◦ Don’t need to always hook up electrodes when working on software
◦ Pre recorded data sets also available to test software

* Oscilloscope can simulate ECG waveform from function generator.

◦ Useful for testing amplifiers and other circuits without hooking up electrodes.
What Is The Product?
* Electrocardiogram
(details will be defined through design process)
Defining a Problem
* Product design can be thought of as a problem that needs to be solved.
◦ “What does my product do?”
◦ “What are the steps to design my product?”

* The better defined the problem, the easier and better the product design process will be.
Defining a Problem
“If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes
defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution” – Albert
Einstein
Problem Framework
* Know what influences the problem, and the outcome of solving the problem.
5310 Problem
* The problem is to design a ECG.
◦ Currently, this problem could be classified as a “mess”

Why?
◦ There is no scope defined for the product
◦ Vague functionality requirements give no sense of direction of where to start (or stop) development.
High Level Questions
* These questions help to define the scope of solving a problem.
Product Development Life Cycle
* When a problem is product development, it follows a product development life cycle.
◦ Usually sequential order, but possible to go backwards, i.e. Redesign if implementation fails
Concept Planning
* Where the scope and content of product is formulated.
◦ Answering high level questions

* Project management activities are done

◦ Schedule
◦ Budget
◦ Resource allocation
Requirements
* What the product must do according to customer/buyer needs.
* Attributes of requirement:
◦ Unique
◦ Feasible and verifiable
◦ Does not conflict with other requirements
◦ Unambiguous and addresses only one specific feature

Example: ECG shall be able to display differential voltages of ± 5 mV.

* Don’t design what is not required for a product!
Design Specifications
* Developing a set of specifications that explains how the product in implemented in response to
requirements.
* A requirement can affect multiple design parameters.
* Requirement - ECG shall be able to display differential voltages of ± 5 mV.
◦ Affects hardware – ADC resolution, negative power supply, microcontroller
◦ Affects software – Visualization methods
Performance Evaluation
* Simulation or calculations to verify if design will meet requirements.
* Attempting to get understanding of how things work before physical implementation.
* Reduce likelihood of redesign.
Implementation & Test
* Building of hardware & software components
* Integrating individual components together with each other.
* Testing verifies requirements are met
◦ Can happen at the component and system level

* A first attempt product is a typically a prototype

◦ “proof of concept” that has functionality, but may require small modifications before selling to
customer.
◦ A prototype to final production product will follow a similar product life cycle process.
Models of Product Development
Waterfall model – Tasks are done in sequential order (design, implement, test) with each step
being complete before moving on.
◦ All requirements need to be known up front

Evolutionary model – Each task in development process is further broken into smaller validation
steps.
◦ Accommodates requirements not known at start up, or that change during product development
Managing Product Development
* Project management is managing time, risks, money, and resources to complete a project in a
timely manner
* Most companies fail with products because of a delay in getting to market.
◦ Other failure sources are excess costs and not meeting functionality.
Defining Task
* Task are steps to completion of a project.
◦ Who is on a task?
◦ How long to complete task?
◦ What is done in task?
Scheduling
* Gantt chart is a visual scheduling tool showing tasks, start & end dates, dependencies, etc.
Risk Management
* Risk is uncertainty in a project.
◦ What if HW part becomes obsolete?
◦ What if an engineer quits?
◦ What if a design can not meet requirement?
◦ What if project fails?

* Managing a risk is mitigating the impact to the project if a risk occurs.

◦ Risk management is addressed at the start of the project.

* Not all risk may be accounted for

◦ Company is bought out and product is canceled
◦ Supplier warehouse burns down
Other Factors For Development
* In product development, don’t copy a prior patented product
◦ Leads to lawsuits dealing with lots of money in patent infringements.
◦ Lawsuits do not get resolved quickly

* Certifications necessary for approval to market and sell a product.

◦ Meeting certification standards will affect design process
◦ Not compiling to a standard can lead to lawsuits, fines, etc.