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APS112 & 113 Conceptual Design Specification Instructions

Assignment: Conceptual Design Specification (CDS)


Overall Google Docs Requirement: It is required that you write your document in Google Docs with each team member using their own Google account. This is because the revision history is used as supporting evidence for each team members contribution to the writing of the report. You are required to: Write the complete document ALL DRAFTS AND REVISIONS online as a single document with multiple contributors (team members) each individually identified. This file will be created by your TA and shared with you. Only this file will be graded.

You are NOT to write the document offline and then upload it at the last minute. [Will result in no revision history] write the document in several separate Google Docs documents and then merge the files afterwards. [Will result in several individuals writing sub-reports and then smashing them together, rather than a team collaboratively writing one report]

Starting Your Assignment: Log into your Google Account and view your Google Docs. Your TA will have shared a CDS document with you. Submission Instructions: The CDS is due Friday, March 2, 2012 at 12:10 p.m. There is no hard copy submission of the CDS. The required content for the CDS (see below) must be submitted as a single shared Google Docs document before this deadline (Not a shared uploaded .docx or .pdf file!). Other forms of submissions, hardcopy or digital, will not be accepted. Before the assignment deadline you are to rename your assignment file in Google Docs to clearly identify it as the Final Version. Standard course late penalties will apply if the document: is not shared correctly, is not in a single file, has a revision history showing that the document was edited after the deadline, is missing a revision history.

Standard course late penalties will also apply if submission instructions have not been followed in another way not specifically mentioned in the above list. By the same deadline a PDF version exported from your Google Docs document must be submitted to Turnitin. If your Turnitin submission is late, then standard late penalties apply. You do not need to submit your appendices or research worksheets to Turnitin. A signed hardcopy of your attribution table must be submitted in person to your marker at the assignment debrief. You do not need to submit your attribution table at the time of the digital submission. Claims of contributing to the writing of sections of the report, without a supporting revision history, will be disregarded as individual contributions to the project and may result in an individual penalty for the under contributing student.

APS112 & 113 Conceptual Design Specification Instructions

The CDS, once fully developed, should clearly communicate enough detail about the conceptual design for the client to be able to make an initial assessment of whether the plan, if it is implemented as shown, will lead to a design that meets their needs. This document should clearly demonstrate your ability to generate a number of solutions and your ability to define criteria for choosing one of the designs to recommend to the client.

This report is to cover the conceptual design stage, including the following:

Project Requirements Methods used to generate alternatives Alternatives considered Methods used to choose recommended design Relevant details about recommended design Recommendations for the testing phase Conclusion

Required content (see attached pages for details) Cover Page Executive Summary 1.0 Project Requirements 1.1. Problem Statement 1.2. Identification of Stakeholders 1.3. Functions 1.4. Objectives 1.5. Constraints 1.6. Service Environment 1.7. Client Ethics and Values 2.0 Alternative Designs, including the one to be presented as Proposed Conceptual Design 2.1. Idea Generation 2.2. Alternative Design Selection 3.0 Proposed Conceptual Design 3.1. Proposed Design 3.2. Plan for Detailed Design 3.3. Outstanding Decisions 3.4. Preliminary Implementation Requirements 3.5. Preliminary Life Cycle and Environmental Impact 3.6. Preliminary Human Factors 3.7. Preliminary Social Impact 3.8. Preliminary Economics 3.9. Preliminary Metrics 4.0 Updated Project Management Plan 5.0 Conclusion/Recommendation Reference List (following modified IEEE format) Appendices with: o Gantt chart o Research Worksheets o graphical material related to the design

APS112 & 113 Conceptual Design Specification Instructions

Format: No less than 3500 words and no more than 4000 words excluding the Cover Page, Executive Summary, List of References, Appendices and other back matter. The word limit penalty is 10 marks (out of 100) per 10 words (or portion thereof) under or over the stated limit. For formatting information, see Document Style Requirements posted in APS112/113 Course Documents on the course portal. Cover Page (posted) Project title, date, client information, design team names. All fields MUST be filled in. Ensure you identify yourselves fully, with both first and last names and that all names are spelled correctly, including Client organization, Client contact person, Project Manager, TA and Communication Instructor. Executive Summary An Executive Summary is a short, information-packed synopsis of your report. The final version should not be less than 300 words or more than 400. The purpose of the Executive Summary is to condense the entire report such that a reader should finish it knowing the basic information about the project. Only an interested reader needs to read more. Many people, in addition to your contact person, may read the Executive Summary and make important decisions about your project based on the Executive Summary alone. Therefore, it must be complete, clearly and precisely written, and cover the most important points made in the most relevant sections of your report. It will also, normally, discuss schedule, budget and key recommendations. However, if there is no budget, you should leave that out. Write the Executive Summary after you have finished the rest of the report. Executive Summaries are generally written in paragraph form, but may contain bullet and/or numbered lists. The opening, however, should be in paragraph form. An Executive Summary is an independent document attached to a report; therefore, it should not have a page number or a header number. Your executive summary must be included in your Turnitin submission. 1. Project Requirements This section gives a distilled report of the background for the project. It focuses on the problem and establishes the specifications that must be considered in developing a design. It must be solution independent and clearly define the fundamental functionality and scope of the design project. 1.1 Problem Statement This is not the statement the client gives you; this is the problem in the design teams own words, indicating the scope of the problem. This statement identifies the client, clearly states the clients need, including motivation (why there is a need for this design), and includes any relevant background information that you have discovered through research, such as additional understanding of user needs and the service environment. 1.2 Identification of Stakeholders This should include all relevant stakeholders, and their respective interests. These interests must be defined independently of the project, but the specific way that the project would affect the stakeholders interest must be shown and, conversely, how the stakeholder interest influences functions, objectives and/or constraints must also be shown. A stakeholder interest should not be written in terms of the design e.g. NOT: The stakeholder would like the design to be portable. Rather, it should be written in
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APS112 & 113 Conceptual Design Specification Instructions

terms of a need the stakeholder has that would be affected by the design e.g. The stakeholder has a highly mobile lifestyle and is therefore interested in being able to carry as much as possible at any time. 1.3 Functions Fundamental functionality must be defined, as well as Primary function(s) the design is to perform Secondary functions Unintended functions/uses 1.4 Objectives Physical, financial, environmental, social and performance objectives for the design Goals for these objectives An objective is identified by should be coupled with an adjective or descriptive phrase. For example: The product should be less than 5 kg. for portability. In this case, less than 5 kg. is not a constraint, but rather a goal set for the objective. 1.5 Constraints Strict requirements for the design May be functional, physical, financial, environmental, social or other as would be relevant to the project Constraint statements identify mandatory requirements that the design must meet and commit the designer to meeting the specification. If the constraint is not met, the system may have to be re-designed at the expense of the designer to meet the tolerance. A constraint will be identified by shall coupled with a definitive and testable limit. For example: The product shall weigh less than 5 kg. 1.6 Service Environment Document the total environment that the design must operate in. If one of these environments, e.g., the virtual environment, is not relevant, omit it. Service environment should not be written from the point of view of the device or design. That is, it is not how the device will be designed to operate within an environment, but what the environmental concerns are in the first place. In other words, NOT The design must be water-proof but The design will be used outdoors, in all weather. Temperatures can range from -32C to +40C. Average rainfall is 709 mm and snow is 138 mm [1]. 1.6.1 Physical environment Such as range of temperature, pressure range, wind velocity, rain and salt spray, humidity, dirt and dust, corrosive environments, shock loading, vibration, noise level, and insect or other pest damage. May be based on the extremes of weather experienced in the users environment, for example. May also acknowledge other elements that may be active in the users environment, including (but not limited to) appliances or machinery.

1.6.2 Living things


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Living things that may interact with the design or need to be considered when developing the design.

APS112 & 113 Conceptual Design Specification Instructions

May be animals, microbes or plants. If human, you may identify factors such as culture, age, language, physical attributes, and education.

1.6.3 Virtual environment Any virtual systems that may exist within the physical environment. May be access to a cellular network or the computer operating system

1.7 Client Ethics and Values The client may have specific ethical policies that will impact cost or implementation. Additionally, the client may have values that will influence a design choice; these values may relate to labour practices, aesthetics, cultural perception, or be environmental, social, or political. Your client will be reading this section. Be professional and diplomatic. 2. Alternatives Briefly introduce the purpose of this part of the report. Describe the function of upcoming sections and justify your design process. 2.1 Idea Generation Explain the methods your team used to generate the alternative designs. Direct your reader to appendices for any tables or charts. 2.2 Alternative Design Selection Describe each alternative design and review its advantages and disadvantages with respect to, in particular, identified requirements, such as (though not restricted to) objectives and service environment. Use parallel structure to make it easier for your reader to understand the comparison. There should be five alternatives and all must be feasible. Each should represent a significantly different approach to solving the design problem with different trade-offs. You may not have one clearly superior design and four clearly inferior designs. You may not select best features from four alternatives in order to create a superior fifth choice. Provide sketches or drawings for all designs and include these in the appendices. Refer your reader to these appendices clearly in the body of the report, identifying appendices by alphabetical designation and title e.g. Appendix A: Design Option 1 Rolodex Toastmaster. 3. Proposed Conceptual Design Identify the alternative design chosen for the conceptual design, and explain your teams decision-making process, referring your reader to appropriate material in the appendices. 3.1 Proposed Design: Provide detailed information about the recommended solution. There must be enough detail to give the client a reasonable sense of how this design will function and how it will meet the objectives of the project. You should include graphic material: simple sketches, drawings, or flowcharts to communicate to the client how you envision the design at this point. You may include selected graphics in the body of the report; other graphics will go in the appendices. This solution, if agreed to by the client, will be the design you develop toward the final detailed design.
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APS112 & 113 Conceptual Design Specification Instructions

It is not necessary, or expected, that all teams will have a fully detailed design at this point. You should write this subsection based on the needs of the situation, giving more detail if you are certain that you and the client are in agreement about the recommended design and know the client requires detail at this point and giving less detail if you are not certain that the client will agree to the recommended design. 3.2 Plan for Detailed Design: Determine the scope for the Final Design Specification, the next document you will work on. What will you deliver to your client? A design, a flowchart, a paper prototype? What seems feasible at this point? What is your plan for creating a detailed design? What aspects of the design are you proposing to detail, and to what degree? Give your client a good idea of what to expect at the end of the term. 3.3 Outstanding Decisions: This subsection lists the design details yet to be worked out. For each of the elements identified, explain the associated requirements. For example, if flooring material needs to be chosen, on what basis will that decision be made? 3.4 Preliminary Implementation Requirements: What will be required to implement your design? Does it require your client to purchase new equipment or software? Will your client need to change their organizational structure? Will your client need to hire people to install the design? There may be other questions to consider, depending on your project. It is important to identify requirements for which you will need to research the costs for the detailed design. 3.5 Preliminary Environmental Impact: Using a life-cycle analysis, identify the potential environmental impacts of your proposed design, and explain how the design tries to lessen the negative impacts and increase the positive ones. Include a life-cycle diagram in an appendix. 3.6 Preliminary Human Factors: Explain how your proposed design addresses the key human factors at each level of the Human-tech ladder. Many factors you identify may be at the physical level, but use a systems approach to show how your design accounts for the other levels as well. 3.7 Preliminary Social Impact: Examine the key social impacts associated with your proposed design, and explain how your design tries to lessen negative impacts and increase positive ones. Also explain how your design balances the concerns of the different stakeholders. 3.8 Preliminary Economics: Identify life-cycle economic costs (but not the actual dollar values) for your proposed design, including capital expenditures, operating costs, and the costs for disposal and decommissioning. Also consider external costs arising from the social impacts. 3.9 Preliminary Metrics For the CDS, the metrics are measurable tests you would use to assess a prototype, its functionality, and how well it meets the design objectives. Given the relatively short development time available, the metrics you propose should test only the most critical objectives in your project and should be kept as simple and easy to implement as possible. You are not expected to perform these tests. The results from the metrics
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APS112 & 113 Conceptual Design Specification Instructions

would, in an actual project, be used to shape the development of the design until it satisfied the client. 4. Updated Project Plan In the main text of the report, concisely describe the project plan. Identify project milestones and due dates, particularly those that may require a client action. As well, you may want to identify risks or problems that might occur, and your plans for overcoming them. (If there are no risks to the design process, then do not include a discussion of risks.) This overview will be presented in greater detail in a Gantt chart. An updated project Gantt chart must be included in an appendix in your report. The schedule should be very detailed in the near term (i.e. for the time between the CDS due date and the Final Design Specification due date), and may be more general for the remaining project time leading up to the final presentation. However, all major milestones, and any known or assumed tasks, should be included wherever possible. The Gantt chart is for the benefit of your TA and PM and should be removed from the report before being sent to the client. Your discussion of the project plan is also covered in lesser detail in the Plan for Detailed Design and Outstanding Decisions subsections of this report. Make sure these subsections and your Updated Project Plan are consistent and complement one another. 5. Conclusion/Recommendation Summarize the key points and bring the document to a close in a way that fully defines what the reader may expect, at this point, from the project. The reader should therefore have reaffirmed any action they are being asked to take as well as those you are taking. This is not a word-for-word repetition of earlier material, but rather a way of bringing the document together and consolidating its main message(s). In this section, you must repeat your recommendation and justify it. The justification should allow the client to understand a degree of flexibility regarding the recommendation so that the clients comfort level is assured. You must give the client some idea of how the process will continue. Reference List It is an academic offense to represent the ideas of others as your own. In order to ensure that you are properly identifying your sources, you must follow two steps: 1. In the body of your report, wherever you have used information in any form from anyone other than yourself, you must identify the source with a citation, that is, a number in square brackets [1]. These numbers are sequential: each new reference gets the next number. An already cited reference keeps the number that it had. 2. You must list all cited sources at the end of your document in a Reference List. This list is not alphabetical. Works are listed in the order that they appear in the document. For each source, you must give the authors names, the date of publication, title of the document and all publication and/or electronic access information. In addition to citing where ideas come from, you must indicate to the reader when you use word for word quotation from a source. The most acceptable method of doing this is to utilize quotation marks () on either side of the quote. Keep in mind that direct quotation is discouraged in engineering practice and that you only get marks for original work; directly quoted ideas will not, in themselves, give you any marks.
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APS112 & 113 Conceptual Design Specification Instructions

However, if you feel that a quote is absolutely justified, make sure you indicate that you are quoting, by using quotation marks. A direct quote that has an in-text citation (number in square brackets) but no quotation marks is still considered an Academic Misconduct and will result in loss of grades, as well as a letter in your file, for you and possibly the entire team. A full explanation of how to cite a source is in the Document Style Requirements of the Course Package. Appendices In the appendices, put material that does not fit in the flow of the document, either because it is too extensive or because only a part of it is relevant; however, you have included the whole to give an interested reader a complete, detailed understanding of your subject. Examples are: manufacturers' data sheets, relevant research documents, or details of alternate designs. It is vital to include in the appendices all drawings, plans or sketches relevant to your project. Add measurements if possible. Any information included in the appendices, other than the Gantt chart and research worksheets, must be mentioned in the body of the report. Moreover, all material in the appendices, including published material such as manufacturers specifications, must have a short introduction written by your team showing the relevance of this material. Material should be divided appropriately into individual appendices, each of which should be clearly labeled and titled: eg, Appendix F: Material Data Sheets. Sources for all material included in appendices must be documented in the Reference List. You do this by putting a number in a square bracket [#] next to the discussion of the appendix in the body of the report. Then you add to the reference list, as you would any reference material, the full bibliographic information in correct form, as explained in the Course Package. Attribution Table (posted) The attribution table describes who in the team was responsible for each section of the submitted document, and the nature of their contribution. An example is also posted to help you understand how to complete the table. Do not forget to identify your project at the top of this form. Information from the attribution table will affect the grade individuals within the group receive. Therefore, it is important that each member of the team review the attribution table for accuracy and sign off on it. A completed attribution table must be brought to the debrief session. Research Worksheet (posted) All research must be documented on a Research Worksheet. Submit a separate worksheet for each source used; if you use the same source several times in a document, you only have to submit one Research Worksheet, but it should note which sections or topics the source was useful for.

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