Concept Generation & Selection¶
Resources¶
- Please download and use the template found at Templates and Forms.
- Instructional video about Concept Generation (9 min)
- Materials from Introduction to Engineering Design course
Concept Generation¶
Use both an internal and external search to generate MANY concepts. At the beginning of the process, there are no 'bad ideas'. Crazy suggestions might inspire other concepts and thoughts among the team members.
- Internal source
- your head (self reflection)
- personal experience and memories
- External source
- Internet search
- Library, catalog
- client interview
- published research paper
- industry solutions
- news
- benchmarking
Concept Selection¶
It is often useful to compare the performance specs of 3+ concepts against each other AND the requirements.
As an example concept A would weigh 14 lbs, B would weigh 25 lbs, and C would weigh 35 lbs. If the requirement is "less than 50 lbs", all concepts are acceptable. If the requirements was at "least 30 lbs" then only concept C is acceptable.
| metric | requirement | concept A | concept B | concept C |
| weight | <50 lbs | 14 lbs | 25 kg | 34.8 lbs |
| HDMI inputs | >=2 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| range | >100 miles | 250+ miles | 189 kilometers | 204 miles |
Always compare 'full concepts' meaning if concept H would require a handle (concept T), then compare concept H+T together against the other concepts.
NOTE that the "1's and 0's" approach used for IED Decision Matrices is NOT sufficient nor acceptable for Capstone projects! You must have meaningful criteria based directly on your project Needs and Requirements AND you should use meaningful quantifiable metrics to evaluate how well your concepts solve the problem. Do NOT use the "1's and 0's" or "pluses and minuses" as you did in IED!