Design engineer

Design Engineer is a general term that covers multiple 


engineering disciplines including electrical, mechanical, 


chemical, civil, and structural/building/architectural engineers. 


The uniting concept is a focus on applying the engineering 

design 


process, in which engineers develop new products or processes 


with a primary emphasis on functional utility.

While industrial designers may be responsible for the conceptual 

aesthetic and ergonomic aspects of a design, the design engineer 

usually works with a team of engineers and other designers to 

develop conceptual and detailed designs. He/she may work 

with industrial designers and marketers to develop the product 

concept and specifications, and may direct the design effort. In 

many engineering areas, a distinction is made between the 

design 

engineer and the planning engineer in design; Analysis is 

important for planning engineers, while synthesis is more 

paramount for design engineers. Test engineers are also 

sometimes contrasted from design engineers, as test engineers 

tend to focus more on the evaluation and analysis of prototypes 

(rather than their conception).

When the design involves public safety, the design engineer is 

usually required to be licensed, for example a Professional 

Engineer in the U.S and Canada. There is usually an 'industrial 

exemption' for design engineers working on project internal to 

companies and not delivering professional services directly to the 

public.

Design engineer tasks

They may work in a team along with industrial designers to 

create 

the drawings necessary for prototyping and production, or in the 

case of buildings, for construction. However, with the advent 

of CAD and solid modeling software (PTC 

Creo, SolidWorks, SpaceClaim, Solid Edge ,keycreator Autodesk 

Inventor, boss, NX, CATIA, etc., for example) the design 

engineers 

may create the drawings themselves.

The next responsibility of many design engineers is prototyping. 

A 

model of the product is created and reviewed. Prototypes are 

either functional and non-functional. Functional "alpha" 

prototypes are used for testing and the non-functional are used 

for 

form and fit checking. Virtual prototyping software 

like Ansys or Comsol may also be used. This stage is where 

design 

flaws are found and corrected, and tooling, manufacturing 

fixtures, and packaging are developed.

Once the "alpha" prototype is finalized, after many iterations, 

the 

next step is the "beta" pre-production prototype. The design 

engineer, working with a manufacturing engineer and a quality 

engineer reviews an initial run of components and assemblies for 

design compliance and fabrication/manufacturing methods 

analysis. This is often determined throughstatistical process 

control. Variations in the product are correlated to aspects of the 

process and eliminated. The most common metric used is 

the process capability index C_pk. A C_pk of 1.0 is considered the 

baseline acceptance for full production go-ahead.

The design engineer may follow the product and make requested 

changes and corrections throughout the life of the product. This 

is 

referred to as "cradle to grave" engineering.

The design process is an information intensive one and design 

engineers have been found to spend 56% of their time engaged in 

various information behaviours, including 14% actively 

searching 

for information.

^[1] 

Furthermore, in addition to design engineers’ 

core technical competence, research has also demonstrated the 

critical nature of their personal attributes, project management 

skills, and cognitive abilities to succeed in the role.

^[2]

Amongst other more detailed findings, a recent work 

sampling study

^[3] 

found that design engineers spend 62.92% of 

their time engaged in technical work, 40.37% in social work, and 

49.66% in computer-based work. Furthermore, there was 

considerable overlap between these different types of work, with 

engineers spending 24.96% of their time engaged in technical 

and 

social work, 37.97% in technical and non-social, 15.42% in non-

technical and social, and 21.66% in non-technical and non-social.