MAKE IN INDIA: INNOVATIVE PRODUCT DESIGN

Mr. Ankush Yadav (Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department) represented Dronacharya Group of Institutions, Greater Noida in the 5-day workshop on “Make in India: Innovative Product Design” organized at IIT Delhi from 14th-18th December 2015.

This course was aimed at providing the necessary concepts, knowledge and skills for a successful innovative product design for achieving the objectives of fulfilling the needs of a society and higher goals of establishing a prosperous nation. The session was primarily taken by Prof. Harish Hirani, Faculty in Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Delhi and a renowned person in the field of product design. The workshop was attended by over 50 academicians from all over the country.

The detail of sessions organized over the course of 5 days is given below:

The session began with a welcome address by Prof. S.K. Saha (Mechanical Engineering Dept., IIT Delhi). It was followed by his talk on MuDRA which stands for multibody dynamics for rural application and is a concept for innovative product design in which issues related to multibody dynamics such as Mechanical design of links, Bearings, Fatigue analysis, Wear losses, Estimation of motor power are addressed. He explained about the origin of this concept, activities of RUTAG (rural technology action group) which was followed by case studies on Carpet Cleaning and Sheep Shearing Tool in which he mentioned that a carpet scrapping machine was designed with the purpose of reducing human effort and it is a straight line machine using Chebyshev mechanism which has proven to be beneficial to people involved in carpet business in reducing their efforts to a great extent. The MuDRA concept poses rural mechanisms as research problems and makes use of modern tools and software. Thus, the benefits of MuDRA include establishing a culture, rural problems may get solved and it brings a pride being one’s own and not a follower.

The next session was by Prof. PV Madhusudan (Mechanical Engineering Dept., IIT Delhi) on the proof of concept to market prototype with the case study on Smart Cane. A smart cane is an obstacle detection and warning system which compliments the functionality of white cane and can be easily mounted and detached from white cane. It detects obstacles with the use of ultrasonic waves and presence of obstacles is conveyed by easily perceptible and intuitive vibratory patterns. Various navigation scenarios like path finding, gate detection, indoor navigation and raised obstacle are taken into account by the smart cane which has optimized ranging algorithm (50 Hz), rechargeable Li –ion battery, indoor and outdoor modes of navigation, user adjustable sensor angle, wide varying grips and is affordable. He also discussed about the importance and benefits of product design & innovation in curriculum which includes courses like Introduction to Engineering and Product Realization.

It was followed by a session on Product concepts in Bio-Medical Engineering by the PG students of IIT Delhi who presented their research work as follows:

1. Mr. Anoop (Ph.D Scholar): Knee Angle Measurement Device For Ambulatory Monitoring

2. Ms. Neha (Ph.D student): Robotic Hand Assisted physiotherapy for paralytic patients

3. Mr. Srinivas (M.Tech. student): Design of prosthetic foot for underarm crutch

Mr. Anoop explained the need and current scenario in the context of knee angle problems, Various problems like propulsive gait, scissor gait, spastic gait, steppage gait and waddling gait may arise due to factors such as muscle diseases, multiple sclerosis, brain or head trauma, Parkinson’s disease, etc. He then gave the statistics for the world population by type of disability where movement disability ranked the highest. He mentioned that the limitations of cost & time, dedicated workspace, off-line analysis pose a problem for making use of support devices for movement. Thus he came up with the idea of developing a low cost knee angle measurement device for real time ambulatory monitoring for rehabilitation which gives the advantages of long term monitoring, easy donning & doffing, single sensor and low cost.

The session on the Products required to Solve Indian Society Problems was taken by Prof. Harish Hirani (Workshop coordinator & Prof., Mechanical Engineering Dept., IIT Delhi) who discussed several concepts like innovative product design, product life cycle, detail of functional product and importance of finding out the weakest link. Product design involves formalization of certain procedures to prevent overlooked factors, minimizing occurrence of errors; emphasizing imaginative thinking to take the thoughts out of designers and put them into sketches, flow diagram, 3D modeling; critical methods and real world problems. The product life cycle constitutes several stages of design phase, manufacturing stage, product usage phase and disposal phase.

The first session on Day 2 was on Identifying the Right Problem taken by Prof. Harish Hirani. He mentioned that it is necessary to look into problem formulation process which occurs in early stages of product design and has the potential for affecting the direction of all succeeding stages. Problem foundation requires understanding of system as well as associate systems. He also explained the various methods for analyzing a problem: Questionnaire, Object Tree method, top down approach and bottom up approach. The objective tree method is a diagrammatic form in which different objectives are related to each other and it indicates a hierarchical pattern of objectives and sub-objectives by helping to sharpen and improve the perception of the problem. Then he discussed about Morphological Analysis which is the first step in giving shape to a product.

The next session was on Presentation of Working Models where following three case studies and working models were presented:

1. Mask for patients with exercise induced asthma

2. Comfortable, adjustable & cheap above knee prosthetic

3. Idea to jugaad: Water purification

The project on Mask for patients with exercise induced asthma focuses on the problem that during normal breathing, the air we take in is first warmed and moistened by the nasal passages. Because people tend to breathe through their mouth when they exercise, they inhale colder and drier air. In exercise-induced asthma, the muscle bands around the airways are sensitive to these changes in temperature and humidity and react by swelling which narrows the airway for passage of air. There is a product existing in market known as Airtrim which has a similar property of heating the inhaled air using the heat of the exhaled air. This light-weight mask has a filter that absorbs some of the heat and moisture from your own breath to re-heat and remoisturize the air when you inhale. This helps keep you warmer and makes breathing easier but it has certain drawbacks that have been addressed by the students where they fabricate a device that will help people suffering from exercise induced asthma.

The device would be similar to a mask which would have an air filter, temperature regulator, humidity regulator and a decontamination device. Such a device will bring the moisture and temperature of the inhaled air to a certain value so that it can pass through soft muscles without any swelling.

The project on Comfortable, adjustable & cheap above knee prosthetic was presented by students of IIITDM Jabalpur. The problem statement for this project was: Above knee amputees need Comfortable, adjustable & cheap above knee prosthetic because legs that are available in the market are Very Expensive, are customized, painful to use and cannot tackle sweat problems. The students explained the harmful features of the existing above knee prosthetic legs giving the example of Jaipur Foot. They modified their device by using a socket design that is more comfortable and reduces the problems of sweat & pain by making its shape manually adjustable to the weight changes of the amputee with the aim of “Able the disable”.

This was followed by session on Autodesk Inventor Professional Software by Mr. Sankalp Bhargava (AutoDESK) which is a 3D mechanical engineering, design, visualization and simulation software. He introduced Autodesk fusion 360 and the procedure for creating solid model and digital prototyping during the Lab Session on Solid Modelling of Products.

The case study on Idea to jugaad: Water purification started with the introduction to The Ganga Action Plan (GAP) which was launched in Varanasi on June 14, 1986 by Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi with statement "We shall see that the waters of the Ganga become clean once again.“ Considering the present scenario for river Ganga where approximately 1 billion litres of sewage is dumped in the river on a daily basis, with the number expected to increase by 100 percent in the next 20 years, the river needs to be cleaned with proper planning and implementation. However, even after spending huge amounts of money, no good solutions have been found. So a water purification system with the mixture of alum and drumstick seed powder has been designed and several tests were conducted which show the system to be an effective solution. This model was demonstrated by the students where they took a sample of dirty water and put it into the system with alum and drumstick seed powder mixture and passing through a filter giving clean water after around half an hour.

The first session on Day 3 was on Functional Analysis taken by Dr. Saurabh Kwatra (Consultant, IEI, Karnataka). He discussed the case study of Washing Machine. He explained that the main function here is to significantly improve degree of cleansing of clothes with the goal that condition of clothes (in terms of cleanliness) after washing must approach when they were purchased from store. Other goals include that the machine should be lighter, smoother in operation with some degree of automation & feedback in-built. The MUF or most useful function of any washing machine is to clean clothes; to remove unwanted soil; to separate all foreign material from fabric. To raise ideality, we must maximize MUF and simultaneously decrease all the harmful effects.

The next session was on Concept Presentation by Participants where the selected participants in teams presented their views and modifications in following areas:

1. Design of Insulin Pump

2. Design of Artificial Heart

3. Design of a product that can supply flood water to drought areas

4. Design of economic Indian toilets, requiring lesser water and providing Bio-gas source

5. Economic machine which can be installed to bank of rivers to clean the water

6. Agricultural machine required for weeding, ploughing and sowing

This was followed by session on 3D Printing Basics by Mr. Deepak Shukla and Mr. Vinay (Network Power Solution Enterprises NPSE). He discussed about the concepts of 3D printing and mentioned that the term 3D printing covers a host of processes and technologies that offer a full spectrum of capabilities for the production of parts and products in different materials. Essentially, what all of the processes and technologies have in common is the manner in which production is carried out layer by layer in an additive process, which is in contrast to traditional methods of production involving subtractive methods or moulding/casting processes. Applications of 3D printing are emerging almost by the day as this technology continues to penetrate more widely and deeply across industrial, maker and consumer sectors. 3D printing is an enabling technology that encourages and drives innovation with unprecedented design freedom while being a tool-less process that reduces prohibitive costs and lead times. Components can be designed specifically to avoid assembly requirements with intricate geometry and complex features created at no extra cost. 3D printing is also emerging as an energy-efficient technology that can provide environmental efficiencies in terms of both the manufacturing process itself. He discussed about the characteristics of any 3D printed model which should be taken into account while making design. These characteristics are as follows:

1. Effect of latest height

2. Minimum thickness

3. Layer print orientation

4. Dimensional accuracies

5. Support printing (over hangs)

6. Pent model orientation

7. Material used, it's characteristics

He also mentioned about other techniques that help in making better designs like in some cases it is better to cut and print the pieces first and then stick them together later to make the final product. He illustrated the examples of some dynamic models like crane and robots and discussed the case study of Dribble which is the realization of an energy efficient walking robot using 20-sim simulation software.

This was followed by Lab Session on Assembly of Products.

The first session was taken by Prof. Anil Gupta (IIM, A) on Grass root level innovation. He talked about Autopoeisis model of distributed knowledge management which is accessible, available, adaptable, affordable, reliable and frugal. He continued by saying that human has always learnt from nature in terms of compassion, creativity, collaboration and communication. Learning from nature contributes to models of knowledge management like swarm intelligence, Fibonacci series, innovations for restoring resilience, spatial taxonomy of knowledge network. Technology is like words, institutions like grammar and culture is like thesaurus and these are the three pillars of sustainability. He then explained that creating open source public standards of excellence leads to a pool of knowledge that can help individuals expand their horizon of learning. Next, he talked about the Honey Bee Network which is when a nameless, faceless innovator or traditional knowledge holder comes into contact with the network and gets an identity, voice, visibility and viability of its sustainable vision.

The designs are of various types such as inclusive design (Design that destroys inertia and enhance inclusion), rejuvenating design (Design that repurposes skills, resources and institutions), disruptive and embedded design (Design that redefines the context, so that content changes), gratitude and empathetic design (Design that recalibrates the moral compass), sufficiency design (Design that serves unmet social needs through new service models), circular & sustainability design (Design that make us sensitive to the needs of future generation) and insular design (Designs that make us indifferent to the needs of others). In inclusive innovation, spaces, sectors, seasons, social segments and skills & knowledge are the dimensions of inclusion. For extreme affordability, less material resource, more knowledge, local resources, global knowledge, repairable features, upgradable features, aspirational connect and sticking to essentials & eye for details are needed. He continued by saying that good ideas come unannounced ad discussed several grass root level innovations by students. Innovation, enterprise and investment form the Golden Triangle for rewarding creativity. There are four levels of learning:

1. Artefactual – replication of similar design

2. Analogic – metaphor to inspire

3. Heuristic – models of thinking

4. Gestalt – configuration of factors

Following are the emerging models of innovation as discussed by Dr. Gupta:

1. Building upon what disadvantaged people are rich in: inability to live with problems unsolved – overcoming inertia

2. Empathetic innovation: samvedana se srijansheelta, kho kho model of innovation (innovation relay)

3. Going beyond long tail, long nose of innovation to turbulent innovation

4. Inverted model of innovations: children invent, engineers fabricate, and companies commercialize

5. Pooling of distributed ideas for innovation and experimentation: uncommon from common

6. Distributed mind management: transcending the limits of frugality

7. Moving blackboards: learning from unexpected quarters

The next session was on Products Involving Renewable Energy Sources by Dr. Saurabh Kwatra (Consultant, IEI, Karnataka). He discussed the case study of wind energy generation and mentioned that wind energy generation is passing a rapid growth stage and should be a key global player in future; it should capture a huge market share of global power in times to come. He presented the concept of trimming, convolution and ideality of machines saying that extreme convolution/trimming holds key to future of integrated lean design & manufacturing. Both convolution & trimming yield identical results. Yet they are not alike. Convolution occurs in a technical system as a phenomenon; it is part of evolutionary wave. Trimming is an innovative design for manufacturability methodology purposefully applied to a technical system to increase its Ideality by achieving specific gain in Most Useful Function (MUF) and/or to decrease one or all of Mass (M), Dimensions (D) or Energy consumed (E) from MDE by a desired amount. Trimming is generally done to a particular Technical System (TS) – a specific product or process of a company, in order to increase its commercial viability, enhance efficiency, reduce material costs, compress assembly line, etc. In contrast, convolution happens (obviously done by human inventor(s)) in a generic TS. An example settles difference. In next few years, silent vacuum cleaners with multiplied sucking power for same electrical input power may appear and yet they may be foldable or collapsible like a football. They may exploit vacuum created not only to extract dust but also to attain silence (noise, a kind of sound, cannot propagate in vacuum). At end of use, the football-shaped vacuum cleaner will be filled by dust; after all a sphere has maximum volume for a given surface area. Not only that, a sphere can roll on floor in two degrees of freedom.

These sessions were followed by the Lab session on product fabrication using Autodesk.

The first session was by Prof. Harish Hirani on Methodology to convert jugaad to systematic innovation and creative design thinking. There are three simple methods to generate systematic solutions:

1. Resource analysis, resource utilization

2. Substance field analysis (identifying standard components and standard methods)

3. Identification of contradictions to find innovative solutions

Contradiction: increasing velocity increases wear rate, i.e., higher speed but lesser wear-out is always preferred which is a contradiction. If one tries to enhance useful function (increasing velocity), harmful functional (wear rate) is also correspondingly increased which leads to technical contradiction. Useful function causes simultaneously harmful function which is physical contradiction. TRIZ (Altshuller’s theory) is the Russian abbreviation of what can be translated as the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. Altshuller’s extensive patent survey indicates most problems are essentially similar no matter what the subject of problem is. He recommended the identification of technical function and associated contradiction and patent analog for problem solving. The most effective inventive solution is usually one that overcomes all contradictions and inventions are usually transferable from one discipline to another. The forty inventive principles were also discussed some of which are:

1. Segmentation (divide an object into independent parts, make an object easy to disassemble, increase degree of fragmentation or segmentation)

2. Taking out (single out the only necessary part/property of an object, separate an interfering part from an object)

3. Local quality (change an object’s structure from uniform to non-uniform, make each part of an object fulfill a different useful function and make each part of an object function in conditions most suitable for its operation)

4. Merging (bring closer together identical or similar objects, assemble identical parts to perform parallel operations and make operations parallel and bringing them together in time)

5. Nesting (Place one object into another, that object is placed inside a third one and so on)

6. Anti or counter weight (to compensate for the weight of an object, merge it with other objects that provide lift)

7. Preliminary anti-action (if it is necessary to perform an action with both harmful and useful effects, a counteraction should be performed first to control the harmful effects)

8. Dynamicity (allow the characteristics of an event, external environment or process to change or be optimal and divide an event into persons/systems capable of movement relative to each other)

9. Partial/excessive action (if 100 percent of an event is hard to achieve using a given solution method then by using slightly less or slightly more of the same method the problem can be considerably easier to solve)

10. Periodic action (instead of continuous action, use periodic or pulsating actions)

11. Homogeneity (make objects that interact with a given object out of the same material)

12. Composite material (change from uniform material to composite material)

This was followed by a case study on heat treatment for large steel parts.

The next session was on Jugaad to systematic innovation: a case study on magnetic bearing. 16% of global energy contributed by renewable sources of energy contribute out of which 27% will be contributed by wind alone. In India 67% of the total renewable energy is from Wind energy. The magnetic bearing in wind turbine generator gives rise to several advantages.

The sessions were followed by prototype presentations and the participants worked upon the problems to provide modifications. The selected projects were webcasted which was followed by certificate distribution.

Conclusion:

The workshop was very informative and helped the participants to put their design skills into practice addressing real-life challenges and gaining valuable additional skills. Through this short term course, we gained a unique understanding of innovative product design by working on practical problems.

Some glimpse from the event: