Problem Definition In this part you describe the problem you set out to solve. You provide sufficient detail so someone can
both understand why the problem is significant and how it has been solved in the past. Your problem is
further detailed by providing key design requirements that the solution must meet.
The problem definition section should have the following subsections using the suggested labels for
each subsection:
Problem Scope A short paragraph explicitly stating the problem to be solved.
Technical Review This section describes why the problem is important. It is a long section
providing background information of the problem. It contains a state–of–the–art technical
review that brings the reader up to speed to the current state of the field which you are working
in. Chances are that the reader is not an expert in the field, as you are. Even if the reader is an
expert, he or she will appreciate a comprehensive review of the field.
The review has two parts. The first part is a more detailed background to the field. For example,
if you are developing a medical device, the background would be a tutorial on the medical
condition being treated by the device. The second part describes the prior art relevant to the
problem, which means all of the existing technology and methods relevant to the problem,
including the ways the problem is dealt with now. The review can include commercial products,
academic journal articles and theses, and patents.
The technical review will likely have many citations to the source of the information with
citations listed in the Reference section. Citations and references should follow ASME, IEEE or
APA style.
Design Requirements Here, you describe the most important, measureable design
requirements that drove your solution to the problem. Generally, there are about five
requirements that are at the core of the design. Additional requirements are described in an
appendix. At the beginning of this section, describe the source of the requirements. Typically
requirements come through researching customer needs or in some cases the detailed
requirements are provided to the designer from the client.
The design requirements are a central element to the design report and must be concrete,
measurable criteria which can be tested. They should be based on a customer need. For
example, “supports 80 lbs” and “has an emissivity greater than 0.8” are concrete, testable
requirements. “Looks nice,” “comfortable,” and “low cost” are user needs and not design
requirements. Refine them to measurable criteria, like “aesthetically rated above average on a
5 point Likert scale” or “can be held for 5 minutes without fatiguing the average user’s hand,” Or
“parts cost less than $20 in lots of 100.” Provide numeric values for all requirements. Numeric
values can be binary for requirements that are best expressed in true/false form. The reason for
having numeric values is that then it is easy to determine whether the design meets the
requirements when the design is evaluated.
