Virtual Conference
July 26, 2021
July 26, 2021
July 19, 2022
Design in Engineering Education
27
10.18260/1-2--37403
https://peer.asee.org/37403
374
Dr. Malena Agyemang is a recent Ph.D. Graduate from Clemson University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Her dissertation research focused on how culture is regarded in the development of design requirements. Her research interests lie at the intersection of engineering, human-centered design, development, and human factors. The goal of Dr. Agyemang’s research is the investigation, development, and improvement of design methodologies, innovative technologies, and systems with cultural, social, and cognitive considerations.
Cameron J. Turner, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is the founder of the DICE (Design Innovation and Computational Engineering) Laboratory, a part of the CEDAR Group (Clemson Engineering Design Applications and Research) at Clemson University. Dr. Turner earned his doctorate (Engineering Design) and masters (Robotics and Automation) at The University of Texas at Austin, and his BSME (Thermal-Fluids and Solid Mechanics) at The University of Wyoming. Dr. Turner previously was an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines and a Research and Development Engineer and Subject Matter Expert at Los Alamos National Laboratory. His research has been supported by grants from government, large industry and smaller manufacturing companies. His areas of interest include computational design methods whereby the computer and engineer collaborate during the design and manufacturing process. His work has resulted in computational tools for design analogy identification, tools for design analysis and optimization, and methods for intelligent integration of robotics and automation systems. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of New Mexico.
A lack of cultural fit in design solutions has prevented design adoption and diffusion in many humanitarian engineering and global development efforts. Design requirements are developed to reflect the target user’s needs and product specifications. A lack of cultural fit in the design solutions suggests there may be a lack of details in the design requirements that prevents the requirements from conveying cultural information crucial to design success. Using an experimental case study approach, this study investigates the effects of the Cultural Element Requirement Assessment (CERA) on design requirement detail. CERA is a formal method that introduces culture when developing design requirements. The method was designed to improve cultural representation in design requirements. This study explores secondary effects of the method by investigating how it affects the level of detail in the design requirements developed. Using a control, experimental, and no treatment group, design requirements and the effects of CERA on design requirements post-intervention are captured. The level of detail in the design requirements is measured by assessing the structure of the requirements using sentence structure rules. The sentence structure rules include incomplete, simple, compound, complex, and complex-compound. Changes in design structure was measured weekly, pre- and post-intervention. The study shows how the sentence structure of requirements changes throughout a project as well as how the use of CERA affects the sentence structure of the design requirements.
Agyemang, M., & Turner, C. J. (2021, July), Investigating the Effects of CERA on Design Requirement Detail Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37403
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