Have you ever wondered why the steering wheel is round or why there are only three blades on a fan? Well, behind every product or system has a design that embodies the ideas. The sole purpose of a design is to convey the architecture using skills and knowledge of designing concepts. No matter what discipline you belong to, the primary goal is to create new designs that benefit the users.
Let’s dive into the realm of design engineering, including its types, tools, and career opportunities.
Table of Contents
A Comprehensive Guide for Design Engineering
What is The Design Engineering Process
Software/ Tools Used in Design Engineering
Design Engineering Jobs & Opportunities
What is Design Engineering?
Design engineering is a systematic process to ideate and design elements or fixtures of any product. When it comes to designing a product, the process begins with a hypothesis. Then they divide ideas into several prototypes to design the final product.
In short, design engineering is a methodological procedure to convert imagination into reality in the form of physical product designs using creativity and engineering skills. You can design everything from the interior of cars to the cockpit of an airplane with design engineering.
Types of design engineering
There is a range of design engineering fields that you can be involved in as a design engineer. Keep in mind that the initial concepts for any design engineer consist of administrative, communicative, and management aptitudes. Design engineers are also known as CAD engineers, consulting engineers, and product design engineers, depending on their specialization.
There are the following types of design engineering that you can specialize in.
-
Electrical engineering
-
Mechanical engineering
-
Chemical engineering
-
Software engineering
-
Civil engineering
-
Electronic engineering
-
Product/industrial design engineering
What is The Design Engineering Process
The design engineering process is an approach that a team of design engineers uses to develop products or systems for manufacturability. The process can be divided into different phases/stages to avoid infallibility. These stages can include ideation, conceptualization, realization, and production. Through this systematic process, the team makes legitimate use of resources to create a sustainable product design. Here are the four stages of the design engineering process:
Ideation
Design engineers will be required to ideate the hypothesis by creating cutting-edge ideas, then use their skills to prepare the design. The entire process is known as ideation. It is the initial stage to start the life cycle of a product. In this stage, engineers create a hypothesis to comprehend the requirements. It requires the following technical skills to face the complexity of the design.
-
Attention to detail
-
Good visual and spatial understanding
-
Strong maths and IT skills
-
A creative flair and design ability
-
Problem-solving
-
Communication and organizational skills
-
Project management skills
-
Time management skills
Conceptualization
Once the requirements are understood, the conceptualization prototype comes into action. Engineers create an innovative design showcasing required product functionality and features followed by Product Requirement Document (PRD). They need to provide complete information on the product including its purpose, features, functionality, and behavior on PRD.
After a proper conceptualization, the second phase of the product's life cycle can now begin, which is the verification and testing of the prototype before finalizing the product.
Realization
After introducing the functionality and features of the product, the third phase begins, which is known as realization. The term realization includes designing, testing, deploying, and supporting new munitions as well as major improvements to the existing architecture of the product. Cross-departmental efforts result in a viable product that comes from the drawing to the use stage. The design should be able to satisfy the potential adopters.
Production
The last phase of the product lifecycle is production. It starts when the design successfully meets each guideline and establishes quality standards.
In addition, the entire process is dedicated to bringing ideas into reality. Based on the available technologies, the design team determines Hardware architecture options, and through a cyclical process of problem-solving, brainstorming, and testing, the team develops a simple and effective product by distributing it to the marketplace.
Tools Used in Design Engineering
The market is flooded with design engineering tools, such as 2D & 3D layout and CAD software, analysis, project management tools, and many more. These tools not only assist in creating designs but also help in managing data and information on the product life cycle. Here is the list of the best designing engineering tools you can use:
1. CATIA
It comes to the top of our list as it is one of the most popular CAD tools to fulfill all needs of design engineers. CATIA refers to Computer-Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application.
2. nTopology
It is an abundant software that offers advanced functionality to boost the efficiency of the design development process. The performance speed of this software is consistently fascinating to industries and has become its USP.
3. MechDesigner
This tool is dedicated to helping engineers develop specialized designs of products and analyze them with 3D mechanisms. This software can move each product even if it has multiple gears and complex motions. It creates excellent 3D picturization to make the view interact to analyze, edit and develop a product to its finest stage.
4 ANSYS DesignSpace
It is a simulation solution for design engineers, which is an easy-to-use tool. It offers useful design features to help them in conceptualizing, design, and validate their ideas right on their computer screens. Even a newbie can create a realistic design using static structural and thermal, dynamic, weight optimization, etc. DesignSpace has a superior interface with advanced post-processing features. Furthermore, it provides advanced numerical methods to solve nonlinear errors.
Design Engineering Jobs & Opportunities
A report by grand view research shows that the global computer-aided engineering (CAE) market expected a valued growth at a CAGR of 8.8% from 2022 to 2030. As technology is growing and making things easier, the interest of people is increasing in the technical fields, such as design engineering. A survey was conducted about the employability of design engineering and the statics shows a satisfactory employment rate for design engineers.
Image Source* Statista
The annual salary range for a Design Engineer in India varies between 1.8 lakhs and 7.0 lakhs, with the usual annual salary for a beginner being around 3.3 lakhs.
In the past few years, there is a rapid growth in this industry, and it is becoming the highest-paying career path. Skilled design engineers are in demand in a number of industries, including automobiles, heating & air conditioning, gas & refining, the agricultural sector, etc. Here is the list of companies that offers good packages for skilled design engineers.
-
TCS
-
Tech Mahindra
-
Tata Technologies
-
Cyient
-
L&T Technology Services
-
HCLTech
Being a design engineer, you can apply for the following roles in the industry.
-
Design Engineer
-
Senior Design Engineer
-
Design Engineer (with SolidWorks proficiency)
-
Chemical Design Engineer
Mechanical Design Engineer
The given link will lead you to the best design engineering courses if you are eager to learn about the fundamentals of engineering design. In addition, you will discover how the primary fields from conceptual design to prototyping work.
Conclusion
The manufacturing industry is expected to boom in the future. The optimistic growth potential for design engineering as a career is high. If you are looking to enter the design engineering industry, the first thing you should keep in mind is that the basic idea remains the same. We hope that the article helped you with everything you needed about design engineering. If you think that you can set a benchmark in the industry, then you are free to Check out our Design & CAE Course.
FAQs
-
What skills are required to be a Design Engineer?
To become a successful design engineer, you should have technical skills, problem-solving skills, creative thinking, time management, attentiveness, teamwork, effective communication skills, etc.
-
What jobs can I get with a design engineer degree?
Based on your skills and interests, you can become a drafting technician, mechanical & CAD designer, CAD drafter, process engineer, etc.
-
Which are the five best software for design engineering?
CATIA, nTopology, MechDesigner, SolidWorks, and MATLAB, are industry-leading and most commonly used design engineering software.
