역설계 중심의 제품 디자인 교육 과정의 제안

Background The reverse engineering methodology is widely used in the engineering field for discovering the problems of existing objects and inducing improvements through analyzing the systems, attributes, and structures of the objects. The purpose of this study is to develop a product design curriculum by taking advantage of reverse engineering and to verify its effectiveness through a case study.

Methods Through literature review, reverse engineering methods, the reverse design model, and the product F-B-S framework were examined (Gero and Kannengiesser, 2004). Previous curricula for reverse engineering at an engineering college were analyzed to adapt its process into a product design curriculum. The proposed curriculum was applied to the actual design class for 16 weeks, and design outputs were analyzed. At the end of the class, a survey of the participants and expert interviews were conducted to evaluate the results.

Results The curriculum consists of five stages: the object selection, structure analysis, behavior analysis, function analysis, and F-B-S reconstructing, which include key activities for carrying out tasks focused on reverse engineering. The results of the case analysis show that the proposed curriculum seems to be beneficial for students to understand the selected products domain of F-B-S in a relatively short time. Moreover, it is considered helpful for students to identify the problems of existing products to generate novel design alternatives at an adaptive design level, which the curriculum intends. Finally, the curriculum was revised after taking into consideration the participants and the expert interviews.

Conclusions This study implies that the framework and design curriculum focused on reverse engineering were discussed theoretically, and the feasibility of its application was verified empirically through cases.