Design Engineering Overview

The foundation of Mechanical Engineering lies in the laws/theories of simple Physics. What a Mechanical Engineering student is taught in those four years is how to apply those law/theories in various domains. The best part of Mechanical Engineering is it's presence around us. It exists in every physical entity, from a bolt to an Airplane. 

Moving on to the domain of Design Engineering. Today, many people consider the role of a Design Engineer to be the same as that of a CAD Professional, which is not true.

CAD Drafting/Modelling indeed is a one of the major roles that a Design Engineer plays but that's not all. 

The role of a Design Engineer in any industry starts from understanding the need for the design or the application for which he is asked to design a product for and continues till the part is finally launched in the market.

In simple terms, a CAD Professional may know how to model a geometry but only a Design Engineer will know why it is done so and why not some other way. 

For the better understanding, I am jotting down the various steps, a Design Engineer is involved in:

• To understand the requirements in terms of the application.
• To research on the competitors similar products available in the market.
• To generate concept solutions/designs for the given problem.
• To conduct DFMEA among the team members from different departments involved in the project to understand the Failure Modes and their Effects and therefore make the appropriate changes if required.
• To finalize the 3D Model and Drawing for the final concept in consideration with DFM and once approved, send it to the vendor for the prototype development.
• To coordinate with the Development Engineers while they work with vendors to understand difficulties they face with manufacturing the part as per the design and make the changes accordingly.
• To coordinate with the Engineers from the Quality Department with respect to the testing (Endurance Testing, Dimensional Verification & Function Oriented Testing).
• To modify the part if required based on the tests conducted.
• To release the part for production under an ECN (Engineering Change Notice) with all the other documents viz. Test Reports, CAD Drawings, Spec Sheets etc.

I know I have not covered everything and there is a lot more to it which probably I haven't got a chance to go about in my professional career yet but to recapitulate, that's what we do!