Large-scale engineering systems require design teams to balance complex sets of considerations using a wide range of design and decision-making skills. Formal, computational approaches for optimizing complex systems offer strategies for arriving at optimal solutions in situations where system integration and design optimization are well-formulated. However, observation of design practice suggests engineers may be poorly prepared for this type of design. Four graduate student teams completed a distributed, complex system design task. Analysis of the teams' design histories suggests three categories of suboptimal approaches: global rather than local searches, optimizing individual design parameters separately, and sequential rather than concurrent optimization strategies. Teams focused strongly on individual subsystems rather than system-level optimization, and did not use the provided system gradient indicator to understand how changes in individual subsystems impacted the overall system. This suggests the need for curriculum to teach engineering students how to appropriately integrate systems as a whole.
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December 2012
In-Brief
A Study of Student Design Team Behaviors in Complex System Design
Jesse Austin-Breneman,
Tomonori Honda,
Tomonori Honda
e-mail: tomonori@mit.edu
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
,Cambridge, MA 02139
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Maria C. Yang
Maria C. Yang
Department of Mechanical Engineering and
Engineering Systems Division,
e-mail: mcyang@mit.edu
Engineering Systems Division,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
,Cambridge, MA 02139
e-mail: mcyang@mit.edu
Search for other works by this author on:
Jesse Austin-Breneman
e-mail: jlab@mit.edu
Tomonori Honda
e-mail: tomonori@mit.edu
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
,Cambridge, MA 02139
Maria C. Yang
Department of Mechanical Engineering and
Engineering Systems Division,
e-mail: mcyang@mit.edu
Engineering Systems Division,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
,Cambridge, MA 02139
e-mail: mcyang@mit.edu
Contributed by the Design Education Committee of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL DESIGN. Manuscript received July 12, 2011; final manuscript received August 10, 2012; published online November 15, 2012. Assoc. Editor: Janis Terpenny.
J. Mech. Des. Dec 2012, 134(12): 124504 (7 pages)
Published Online: November 15, 2012
Article history
Received:
July 12, 2011
Revision Received:
August 10, 2012
Citation
Austin-Breneman, J., Honda, T., and Yang, M. C. (November 15, 2012). "A Study of Student Design Team Behaviors in Complex System Design." ASME. J. Mech. Des. December 2012; 134(12): 124504. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4007840
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