Spiral design model for consumer mechatronic products

A spiral design model for consumer mechatronic products (CMPs) is described. The development of CMPs often requires frequent design changes, and some CMP production tools are expensive and have long fabrication leadtime. The spiral model can reduce the tooling commitment and allow more design flexibility at early stages of the design process. It divides the design process into five phases with specific tasks and milestones for each phase: (i) exploration of product concepts using novel technologies; (ii) development of crude models for feasibility studies; (iii) construction of laboratory prototypes for functional testing; (iv) selection of manufacturing processes for mass production; and (v) initiation of pilot run to detect early production problems. The concept of merging concurrent engineering techniques into the spiral model, thereby shortening the product development time and allowing better utilization of manpower, is explored.