Intellectually and technologically, the art of design is one of the oldest forms of
mankind’s expression of creativity. Since the early days of primitive man to now,
humans have discovered needs that require functional artefacts to perform necessary
operations. There are vast differences in the appearance and applications of such
artefacts which have varied with time. Developing artefacts to fulfil the new and
changing requirements presents a creative response to problem solving at the macro and
micro scales. Developments in technology have progressed rapidly driven by the
requirement to create smaller artefacts that possess a larger variety of functions.
The current developments of micro and nano scale devices have the potential of
triggering a technological revolution in many fields. The healthcare industry is utilising
micro and nanotechnology applications and aiming these to provide quicker and more
affordable medical diagnostic equipment such as the lab on a chip. This is currently
being developed to provide a point of care testing to analyse blood samples for different
viruses, in a miniature blood testing laboratory which is in the space of a microchip, and
providing the appropriate response in a real time environment. Some of these devices
are still in the conceptual phases with the possibility for future large volume
manufacturing however; the development of microelectromechanical systems or MEMS
as they are more commonly known, is performed by the experts with an intuitive based
approach.
In such context, this thesis proposes a theoretical model for the development of MEMS
devices by examination of literature in; generic product development processes used in
the engineering and manufacturing areas and capturing how MEMS are currently
developed. Parallel to this, development practices currently deployed for MEMS as
performed by the experts and practitioners have been illustrated in the form of an As-Is
model validated by MEMS experts. The use of IDEF0 to model the existing MEMS
development process has provided the necessary tool to analyse the existing process,
recognise the limitations, identify the areas of improvement and implement these into a
To-Be model proposed for future MEMS development validated by domain experts
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