This document proposes a visual mapping approach to functionally decompose products and communicate engineering design ideas. It notes that defining functions is a challenge for students and engineers. The approach minimizes the number of elementary functions, maps them to existing functional basis frameworks like TRIZ and NIST, and represents function flows visually using icons. Examples show how daily activities and a memory car seat module can be broken down and depicted visually. The approach aims to improve cross-language communication and decrease clarification needs in engineering design processes.

1. Visual Function
Mapping
Rebeca Béliard & Darrell Kleinke
University of Detroit Mercy

2. http://blog.mindjet.com/2012/05/between-minds-left-brain-vs-right-brain-thinkers/

3. The Problem
Students, designers and engineers alike have
poor function-definition skills.
Language barriers in today’s global
marketplace are a great incentive for better
communication.
Engineers often rely on visual methods to
relay information that is difficult to
vocalize, we are not so creatively handicapped
after all!

4. The Solution

5. Background
Engineering design textbooks emphasize the
importance of the early stages of the design
process. However, the critical discussion to
decompose and analyze the functions of a
product is often lightly explored.
Where else does a young engineer learn
to develop such a skill?

6. Background
✱ TRIZ, one of the most robust and well-
documented problem-solving methods, which
relies on many tools to match a desired solution to
an already-solved problem.
✱ However, this may be a hindrance to creativity
and idea innovation because the open-endedness
of a solution fades with the assumption that the
problem has already been solved.
✱ In addition, the many tools and steps within TRIZ
can make the method obtuse and difficult to
digest.

7. Background

8. Approach
✱Minimize number of elementary
functions.
✱Map to TRIZ and the NIST’s functional
basis proposal.
✱Create pairs of functions, showing
forward and backward ‘flow’ for each
pair.

9. The Icons

10. The Standard

11. How does a visual
function map look like?
GETTING READY FOR
WORK

12. Activity Map
What does it take to get myself ready for work?
1. Get dressed
a. Select outfit
b. Change from PJ to work attire
2. Brush my teeth
a. Put toothpaste & water on toothbrush
b. Move toothbrush around teeth
3. Put makeup/perfume on
4. Grab lunch and purse
5. Walk out the door!

13. NSIT Functional Basis Text Map
1. Get dressed
a. SIGNAL (sense what I want to wear, measure stylishness)
b. BRANCH (Body from PJ)
c. CONNECT (Body with work attire)
2. Brush my teeth
a. CHANNEL (import water and toothpaste to toothbrush)
b. CHANNEL (rotate/translate toothbrush around my teeth)
3. Put makeup/perfume on
a. IMPORT (beauty products to my face)
b. PROVISION (‘store’ makeup and perfume to stay put all day)
4. Grab lunch and purse
a. CONNECT (purse and lunch to me)
5. Walk out the door!
a. CHANNEL (exporting myself out of my apartment and into my car)
b. CHANNEL (transferring my car from home to work)

16. Coffree Map
 = Material flow
 = Signal flow
 = Energy flow

17. Conventional Instant Coffee Map

18. Example 2: Memory Seat Module
www.cadillac.com

19. Example 2: Memory Seat Module

20. Does it work?
Pictogram Approach

21. Why does this matter?
✱ As an engineer, understanding the overall
function of the product is key into finding
effective and efficient solutions.
✱ The time spent communicating ideas across
languages, and the time spent clarifying
miscommunications could easily be decreased
by relying more on a universal ‘language,’
such as pictures, numbers, and
symbols, rather than spoken languages.

22. References
O Hirtz, J., Stone, R., McAdams, D., Szykman, S. and
Wood, K., 2002, “A Functional Basis for Engineering
Design: Reconciling and Evolving Previous Efforts,”
Research in Engineering Design.
O Kasai, T., Kitamura, Y., and
Mizoguchi, T., 2001, “Ontology-based Description of
Functional Design Knowledge and its Use in a
Functional Way Server.”
O Ookubo, M., Koji, Y., Sasajima, M., Kitamura, Y., Mizogu
chi, R., 2007, “Towards Interoperability between
Functional Taxonomies using an Ontollogy-based
Mapping”, ICED 2007.
O Pahl, G., and Beitz, W., 1998, Engineering Design - a
Systematic Approach. The Design Council.

23. Questions
http://www.presentermedia.com/help.html