What is design for mechanical engineering | Design Department for mechanical engineer

R.K Verma

4/12/2023

This article covers about Design Department for mechanical engineering. How mechanical engineer works in design department. As discussed in previous blog, mechanical design department is very critical department in mechanical industry. It is also called brain of organization. Topic covered in this article are :

  • What is General Design

  • What is engineering Design

  • Service of Design Department

  • Different Domains in design department

General Design 

General design is form of any shape , line, structure which can be used for decoration, better aesthetic look, non-operational function. It is non-customer focused.

Examples :   Catalogue design, Table design, Wardroom design, Digital design, floor design and many more.

Engineering Design

Engineering design is strategic steps involved to design a component or product as per customer requirement. It is basically a process in which different activities to be done to design a component or product. It is customer focused approach.

       Engineering Design ====>>   Prototype ====>>  Regular Production

Following are steps which need to follow for Engineering Design :-

  1.  CFT team formation - Group of people from cross functional department

  2.  Design Plan

  3.  Design Inputs

  4.  Design Input Review

  5.  Design Output

  6.  Design Output Verification

  7.  Design output release for Prototype

  8.  Procurement activities for Prototype

  9.  Prototype Inspection 

  10.  Prototype Preparation

  11.  Inprocess & Final inspection

  12.  Design Validation

  13.  Final design approval for mass production 

Responsibility of Design Department :

Prime responsibility of Design Department is to provide Reference for manufacturing any product or component by means of drawing. This drawing is used by various department to fulfill customer's requirement. Purchase department use drawing to procure material which is used for production. Production department takes the reference of drawing to perform machining operations on component. In addition to this there are another more responsibilities of design department which are covered in next article.

Take an example of Shirt Stich. When we go to Tailor for Shirt stiching, he takes our body measurement as a reference to Manufacture Shirt. Similar way,  to manufacture any part, we need drawing as a reference to manufacture it.

While performing steps to complete engineering design process, we need to complete cycle of CAD-CAE-CAM.

First of all, preparation of models & drawings take place with the help of Computer aided design (CAD) tools. Next step is to verify and validate that model with the help of analysis by using Computer aided engineering (CAE) tools. Last step is check manufacturing capabilities of part or product with the help of Computer aided manufacturing (CAM) tools.    

Complete Cycle of Design department which covers all design related activities is :

             CAD    ========>>>        CAE    =========>>>    CAM  

  • CAD                  :    Computer aided design                                                                    -   2D, 3D Models & Drawing 

  • CAE                  :    Computer aided engineering                                                         -  Analysis & Simulation

  • CAM                 :    Computer aided manufacturing                                                  - Programming for CNC / VMC Machining

Conclusion :

Design Department contribute its 90% role in manufacture quality product with accuracy as per customer requirements. It minimize the development cost of iterations which need to perform during development. Hence, it provides a systematic approach to deliver accurate product which sustain quality and ontime delivery.