What activities does a Design engineer do ?

Mufaddal Rasheed Author

Sep 25, 2023 |

A detailed breakdown on what Design engineers do on a daily basis and how their work content changes based on phase of the project

There are three key major functions in any product development organization.

Any new product development has three key phases

1. Concept phase
2. Detail Design phase
3. Production phase

The activities of analysis , prototyping and Testing are carried from the concept till the production stage. 

Design engineers work in all three phases of product development.

Concept phase is the ideation phase when ideas are generated, concepts are created and refined. The initial phase is generally high on creative exploration followed by analysis .Due to the nature of product development , this phase is iterative meaning there is alternating activity of design (create) and Analysis (evaluate) until a refined concept is created generally accompanied by layouts and specifications.

The specific daily activities would include:

1. Brainstorming new ideas
2. Generating concept based on the ideas generated
3. Performing basic analyses and calculations to make Design decisions
4. Developing Proof of concept to evaluate the initial concept.
5. Learning about the problem at hand and Research

The next major phase is Detail design. The concepts are converted into manufacturable designs and plans which can be put into motion through prototyping and testing.

Major activities for the design engineer include.

1. Detailing every component of the assemblies of the product
2. Work with Engineering analysis teams – CAE to perform deep engineering analysis and calculations followed by design refinement.
3. Prepare documents like DFMEA (design failure Mode Effect Analysis) for improving quality followed by preparation of DVP (design verification plans)
4. Create the Full Bill of Materials with all details covered
5. Work with suppliers and manufacturing team for Design for manufacturing and assembly and process engineering (design of manufacturing and assembly flow)
6. Preparing the Engineering documents – Blueprint or drawings with tolerancing
7. Improve design specifications through prototyping and Testing.

Next and Final stage of design process is the production stage. When the design plans and drawings prepared in Detail design along with the inputs of various teams including manufacturing, testing, CAE(analysis) , costing, etc are executed to assemble and produce the products.

Major activities for design engineering include.

1. Final Design release which is also called as Engineering release. After which any design changes would have direct impact on the assembly line.
2. Sorting out issues on production line and tweaking design to maintain smooth flow of production.
3. Working on service-related concerns to improve designs

In Product development of large systems like Automotive development, generally the teams are divided into various functions and then there is a cross functional team for each project which works to deliver the project.

Here is an example :

Each of these functions perform their individual responsibilities, for example the industrial designer prepares the clay models and exterior/interior design of the car. Who then works with the design engineer to design the Body panels, Trims components as per the design.

On the other side, a chassis design engineer works with the Engineering analyst to analyse the stresses on the suspension components and also works with the costing team , manufacturing team to reduce cost of the system . Also, look at fatigue validation of suspensions in the lab and make design changes off of it.

Working with prototyping engineers to prototype a new proof of concept for testing.

Design engineering is a very large set of activities and skills which includes many domains for specialization.

1. System wise domains
2. Manufacturing wise domains
3. Technology wise domains

Compartmentalization of skills and knowledge sets of this domains.

The separate functions within engineering may include one or more domains .

Automotive system-based domains.

1. BIW (Body in white) design engineer
2. Chassis design engineer
3. Engine design engineer

Technology wise domains

1. Mechanical design engineer
2. Mechatronics design engineer

Manufacturing wise domains

1. Sheet metal design engineer
2. Plastics design engineer
3. Casting design engineer

Categories: : Skills and knowledge