The Design Engineering Lab conducts research in the area of design theory and methodology. If you are unfamiliar with the field, it is basically the study of the science of design. Modern design methods provide a systematic approach to design problems. Most start by gathering customer needs and then proceed through steps which address engineering requirements, functional decomposition, concept generation, concept selection, product architecture, detail design and prototyping. Research work in design theory and methodology area focuses on attempts to formalize the process of design.