Exercise: Complexity and engineering design
Complexity in engineering products
Engineering products can be quite simple, such as an office chair, or very complex, such as a smartphone. One way of measuring the complexity of engineering products is by the number of individual components, or parts, they comprise.
It is important to note that while some products seem to comprise a small number of components, like a smartphone, this is not actually the case. All modern electronic gadgets use many integrated circuits, known as ICs for short. A single IC can have millions of microscopic transistors crammed into a small silicon chip, as shown in the photograph below. The design complexity of these ICs is no less than any other complex mechanical artefact. And in terms of component count, a smart phone can have more electronic components than the number of mechanical parts in a jet aircraft.
Activity: Classifying engineering products by complexity
- Below you will see a list of products in a table. The first five have been classified for you as examples.
- Look at the rest of the products and classify them according to their complexity (low, medium, high or very high), the type of components they include (mechanical, electrical, electronic or software) and the engineering specialisations involved in their design.
- Check your answers against the model answers in the next step.
Download the Table – classifying engineering products by complexity [pdf]
| Product name | Product complexity (low, medium, high, very high) |
Types of components used (mechanical, electrical, electronic or software) |
Types of engineering specialisations involved in its design |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car | Very high | Mostly mechanical components, but also include many electrical ones (e.g. the starter motor), electronic ones (e.g. temperature sensors), as well as software components (e.g. ECU code) | Mechanical engineering, automotive engineering, electrical engineering, electronic engineering, software engineering, human factor engineering (ergonomics), industrial design (shape design) and others |
| Office chair | Low | Mechanical components | Mechanical engineering, human factor engineering (ergonomics), industrial design (shape design) |
| Laptop computer | Very high | Mostly electronic and software components, but also include some mechanical parts (e.g. fans and case) | Computer engineering, software engineering, as well as human factor engineering (ergonomics), and industrial design |
| Document preparation (word processing) software | High | Software components | Software engineering, human factors engineering (human interface design) |
| Photocopier machine | |||
| Electric kettle | |||
| Smart phone | |||
| Pressure cooker | |||
| Helicopter aircraft | |||
| Garden shovel |
Fundamental Skills in Engineering Design
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