CONCEPT SELECTION
After
completing the concept generation process, the selection of our final concept
initiated. During the concept generation process, concepts were categorized by
high, medium, and low fidelity so only viable options proceed through the
concept selection analysis. There was a total of four concepts that were deemed
high and middle fidelity. A Pugh Chart, House of Quality (HOQ), and Analytical
Hierarchy Process (AHP) were performed to select the best concept. These tools
help rank the importance of all of the customer needs and compare generated
concepts while helping to ensure that no concepts were generated upon bias.
PAIRWISE COMPARISON
Before
starting the House of Quality, a pairwise comparison had to be completed in
order to find the necessary importance weight factor of the customer
requirements (CRs). The top CRs were determined after completing the
relationship matrix between the CRs and engineering characteristics (ECs). The
pairwise comparison ranks the importance of the CRs from most important to
least important. From the pairwise comparison table, the CR rankings are:
1.
Supports 60% / 40% weight
distribution (score of 8)
2.
Navigates typical
street routes with ease (score of 7)
3.
Envelops multiple
parade constraints (score of 5)
4.
Represents FAMU-FSU
College of Engineering (score of 5)
5.
Represents FAMU-FSU
College of Engineering disciplines (score of 4)
6.
Entire system is
interchangeable (score of 3)
7.
Storability (score of
2)
8.
Operates in outdoor
weather conditions (score of 1)
9.
Tolerates inclines
(score of 1)
It’s
sensible that supports 60% / 40% weight
distribution and navigates typical
street routes with ease were determined to be the most important CRs. None of the other CRs can be met if the
parade float does not function correctly. With the CR rankings, the House of
Quality was created.
House of Quality
EC
total scores were represented as a percentage of the total raw score to rank
each EC from most important to least important.
From the House of Quality, the ECs weighted from most important to least
important are:
1.
Navigation (relative
weight of 29.14%)
2.
Stability (relative
weight of 24.20%)
3.
Appeal (relative
weight of 14.81%)
4.
Durability (relative
weight of 10.86%)
5.
Cost (relative weight
of 10.37%)
6.
Weight (relative
weight of 8.40%)
7.
Weather resistance
(relative weight of 2.22%)
From
the ranked ECs, it was determined that
weather resistance was not an important EC, so it will not be taken into
high consideration when selecting a final concept. It’s sensible that the top
ECs were: navigation, stability, and appeal since the top CRs were: supports
60% / 40% weight distribution, navigates
typical street routes with ease, and represents
the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. From the House of Quality, concepts
that will be highly favored are: concepts that navigate well, concepts that are
stable, and concepts that appeal to the audience. Some concepts that are highly
favored according to the House of Quality are: the
Innovation-Go-Round and the Gridded Deck system.
Pugh Charts
Through ideation, 4
of the top 8 concepts were eliminated; and the other 4 most logical ideas
remained to undergo the concept selection process. The top 4 concepts that
underwent the concept selection process were: a
Gridded Deck System, the Innovation-Go-Round, Engineering Express and Gear
Ferris Wheel. These 4 solutions were all assigned either a plus sign (+), a
minus sign (-), or an S, for good, bad or neutral, respectively, compared to
the datum in the Pugh chart. Each one of the solutions has a score of total (+)
and total (-) signs which were used in the comparison. In the Pugh chart 1, the
Gear Ferris Wheel was used as the datum and was compared to the other concepts.
Pugh Chart 1
.
From Pugh Chart 1, the Gear Ferris Wheel concept was
relatively inferior to the majority of the other concepts.
Pugh Chart 2
Pugh chart 2 was made
using Gridded Deck System as the datum and was compared to the other concepts.
From Pugh chart 2, the Engineering Express ranked last,
therefore it was removed from the future Pugh chart comparison. The team
supported this decision since the design was readily troublesome and scored
poorly in the House of Quality. Other things to note from Pugh chart 2 is that
the Gridded Deck System concept is relatively superior to all other concepts.
Pugh Chart 3
Pugh chart 3 was made
using the Innovation-Go-Round as the datum and was compared to the other
concepts.
From
Pugh Chart 3, it was determined that the gridded
deck system is relatively superior to the Innovation-Go-Round, and it was
also determined that the Gear Ferris Wheel concept is relatively equivalent to
the Innovation-Go-Round concept.
ANALYTICAL HIERARCHY PROCESS
The analytic
hierarchy process is a structured technique for organizing and analyzing
complex decisions, based on analytics. First, engineering characteristics were
compared to one another to produce a numerical comparison of importance.
Consistency of each comparison was performed to ensure comparisons were
reasonable. Then, the final 4 concepts were compared to one another, taking
each engineering characteristic into account. This analysis is where error occurred.
During the consistency check of the concept comparison matrix, the consistency
value repeatedly was about 1.0 for each concept. Looking at other projects, it
seemed that our average consistency value was very different from that of a
successful project. This lead to inaccurate consistency ratios, which creates
trouble when determining a final concept. More work is to be done to the
concept comparison matrices to ensure a proper final selection is to be made.
From the final selection table, the final selection was determined to be the
Innovation Express. The Innovation Express, however, was eliminated by the Pugh
Chart, and also is not suitable according to the House of Quality. Since the
AHP calculations were off, the AHP data was not taken into account during the
final design selection.
FINAL SELECTION
The
final selection during the initial concept selection is the Gridded Deck System.
From the House of Quality, the Gridded Deck system and the Innovation-Go-Round
were highly preferred since these are the more stable concepts with
interchangeability. From the Pugh
charts, the Gridded Deck System scored higher than all other concepts,
including the Innovation-Go-Round. Since the Gridded Deck System was preferred
according to both the House of Quality and the Pugh Chart, this concept was
selected to be the final concept.
Gridded Deck System
The Gridded Deck
System consists of a metal deck system attached to the top of the trailer. This
deck system will have multiple slots for interchanging kinetic sculptures,
systems, and decorations. A gridded deck allows for completely altering the
theme of the float for different parades. The deck system is to be powered,
potentially by the vehicle pulling the trailer, and supply power to all parts
attached to the system. Additional comments on the design of the deck system
concept can be seen in Concept Generation.
Once improvements are
made to the AHP, concept selection may change. If the final concept selected
changes after correcting the AHP, all concepts will be ran
through the selection process again.