You work as a design engineer for a developing manufacturing company and have been asked to meet with a potential customer. The customer is a charity that provides and installs fresh water bore holes in developing countries. You have been asked to provide a mechanism for pumping water out of a bore hole.
It should be assumed that the bore holes are likely to be located in remote areas. As such they should be human-powered only, and should be designed for ease of installation in mind.
Once installed, the charity is not located within the communities, therefore any ongoing maintenance will need to be managed within the community. As such ease of use, and availability of parts/materials needs to be considered.
It should be expected that the pump is used daily for a minimum of 10 years, and could be a life-line for a small community (up to 50 people).
Some critical design features:
● Depth of the bore hole to the water surface is minimum of 1.5m.
● Pump should be powered only by human input (no electrical power available), and should be capable of being operated by a 95 percentile male or female within the age ranges of 14 to 65 with regards to size and strength.
● The pump should be capable of providing 1L of water in a 2 minute period of operation, but could be used for extended periods of 30minutes at a time.
Task:
Produce a report which contains the follow sections:
● Outline of the problem and understanding of the customer brief
● Research the current designs of human powered driven pumps
● Detailed Design Specification which meets all the customer requirements
● Present project schedule for the design of the product (including sequence and timing of each activity)
To achieve a Merit, the report should also:
● Evaluate which design methodology you are using and explain why
● Identify the critical path activities on your plan and what impact they may have on the project
● To achieve a Distinction, the report should also:
● Critically analysis other industry standard design briefs (on any product), and compare them with your own
Submission Format:
A formal report with appropriate use of structure and referencing.
I already submitted the work, and here is the feedback I received:
Overall, you have provided a detailed background on human-powered pumps. Your review of the literature was adequate. However, the major aspect of the assignment has not been addressed, which is focusing on the case-study problem, where you act as a design engineer for a developing manufacturing company and have been asked to meet with a potential customer.
In addressing this scenario, you are expected to provide the following:
1. Design brief, giving the details and technical requirements of the project.
2. state of the art on the current design of human-driven pumps. (your work covers this part).
3. specifications for the design. Preferably, this can be made in a tabular format.
4. You need to provide the project schedule and critical paths. You have a project schedule in your report; however, a critical path must also be provided, as detailed by the tutor.
Finally, you are commended for the references and bibliography provided.