Date of Award
8-2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Legacy Department
Mechanical Engineering
Committee Chair/Advisor
SUMMERS, JOSHUA D
Committee Member
CHOI, HONGSEOK
Committee Member
NEYENS, DAVID M
Committee Member
SEN, CHIRADEEP
Abstract
This thesis reports a protocol study that examines how designers construct function structure graphs as they understand and develop solutions for novel design problems. Eight voluntary design engineers, with two to four years of experience in product design and function modeling are presented with a novel design problem for which they have to develop functional models as part of concept development. The modeling actions are video recorded and the data is analyzed using a predefined protocol that encodes the addition, deletion, and modification of model elements such as functions, flows, and text, and also other activities such as reading the problem statement and pausing between activities. The protocol is shown to be complete within the scope of the study and the coding scheme is validated with inter-coder reliability analysis. The protocol analysis reveals patterns of occurrences of pauses in the modeling activity, elemental patterns such as Edge- Edge Text (E-ET), Block-Block Text (B-BT) which could help in understanding the designer’s behavior and modeling activities, such as chaining of the model. In aggregate, these observations provide insight into designers' thinking patterns while exploring solutions to unseen problems using function structures. There is suggestive evidence indicating that designers perceive functions as more concrete concepts as opposed to flows. This claim is further strengthened by inspecting the occurrence of the elemental patterns which showed the occurrence of Block-Block Text (B-BT) pattern is higher than the occurrence of Edge-Edge Text (E-ET) pattern. Further, analysis was conducted on the occurrences of pauses before and after the elements, edge, and block showing that the average duration of pause before inserting an edge is the largest while, the average duration of pause after a block is the largest. This thesis also suggests that the designers tend use more of forward chaining and nucleation in the modeling process when compared to backward chaining, for a novel design problem.
Recommended Citation
THIAGARAJAN, ASHWINRAJ, "FUNCTIONAL THINKING: A PROTOCOL STUDY" (2015). All Theses. 2195.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/2195