GROUP 4Group Members:

Nurul Afifah Binti RosliFathi Nuramaliya Binti

ZakariaMuhammad Faiz Bin RomliMuzammil Bin MazlizamAhmad Fahmi Bin

MohammadMuhamad Syafiq Bin Rosli

Assignment 3.7

Assume that a focus group of college students was convened to show them an innovative thumb drive memory unit and to ask what characteristics they wanted it to have. The comments were as follows:

It needs to have enough memory to meet student needs. It should interface with any computer a student would encounter. It must have a reliability of near 100%. It should have some way to signal that it is working.

Translate these customer requirements into engineering characteristics of the product.

Customers cannot describe the product they want in engineering characteristics because they lack the knowledge base and expertise.

Design Parameters. Parameters are a set of physical properties whose values determine the form and behavior of a design. Parameters include the features of a design that can be set by designers and the values used to describe the performance of a design.

Design Variable . A design variable is a parameter over which the design team has a choice.

Constraints . Constraints are limits on design freedom. They can take the form of a selection from a particular color scheme or the use of a standard fastener.

BENCHMARKING A process for measuring a company’s operation against the

best practices of companies both inside and outside of their industry.

An exchange of information between companies that are not direct competitors but can learn from each other’s business operations.

Making comparisons in the design and manufacturing of products.

We have study and try to compare different thumb drives produced by Kingston, Buffalo and Sandisk in order to fulfill customer requirement.

REVERSE ENGINEERING Another name for ‘product dissection’. 4 activities in product dissection process:

• Discover the operational requirements of the product.• Examine how the product performs its function.• Determine the relationships between component parts of

the product.• Determine the manufacturing and assembly processes

used to produce the product.For this assignment, we try to dissect our thumb drive and study how to improve each elements in order to fulfill customer requirements.

CONVERTING CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS TO ENGINEERING CHARACTERISTIC

It needs to have enough memory to meet student needs. It should interface with any computer a student would encounter. It must have a reliability of near 100%. It should have some way to signal that it is working.

1. ENOUGH MEMORY Design parameter:-1) Design a thumb drive memory with space 128GB.2) Design two slots USB connector in one thumb drive (2 in 1)

which make the students able to separate their file. Design variable:-1) The thumb drive memory can be in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and

62GB.2) The SD cards can be inserted into the slots on a thumb

drive. Design constraints:-1) Need to increase the size of the thumb drive 2) More expensive

2. INTERFACE Design Parameter:- 1) USB slot for any electronic devices 2) Tracker in case of missing or misplaced. 3) Glow in the dark for enhance interface.

Design Variable:- 1) Multiple function, simple and compact design for easy to carry. 2) Can freely connect the USB drive with smart phones ( iOS & android devices) and other electronic

devices (Computer). 3) Design to offer an ultra handy way to transmit data at higher speed.

Design constraint :- 1) The price more expensive. 2) Improve size.

3. RELIABILITY1. DP : A casing to protect against scratch, wear and tear DV : Sporting a sleek aluminum metal casing and plastic casing C : aluminium metal are quite expensive while plastic are cheap but easy to scratch, wear and tear

2. DP : USB with the higher transfer rate DV : Compatibility, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0

C : USB 2.0 version generally less expensive than USB 3.0 version but USB 2.0 has a lower transfer rate especially to transfer large data file.

3. DP : Features than can protect the data from corrupted DV : Drives that allow to protect the content in the thumb drive with password and cloud backup capabilities C : Drives with this features is very expensive and not suitable for students daily use

“The now-aging USB 2.0 standard can theoretically transfer data at a very high 480 megabits per second (mbps), or 60megabytes per second (MBps). That's impressive, but not as much as the newer USB 3.0, which can handle up to 5gbps (640MBps)—over ten times as fast as the 2.0 maximum ”

BASED ON ENGINEERING CHARACTERISTIC :

Design parameter :-1) Design a thumb drive with light-emitting diode to give signal that it is working.2) Design a thumb drive with buzzer to produce sound to show that it is working.

Design variables :- 1) The light-emitting diode (LED) can be appeared in two colors which are red and green.2) The micro-buzzer will produce sound (“beep” once) if the thumb drive does not have any problem.

Design constraints :-1) The design will be more complicated.2) More space is needed in order to place components.

4. SIGNAL THAT THUMB DRIVE IS WORKING

CONCLUSION Problem definition in the engineering design process takes the form of

identifying the needs of the customer that a product will satisfy. Design teams describe products in terms of engineering characteristics:

parameters, design variables, and constraints that communicate how the customer needs will be satisfied.