Brainstorming

About this Step:
At the beginning of this step there are no bad ideas. Every concept or solution is treated as being relevant and plausible. The larger the number of ideas the better the final solution will be. A plethora of ideas stimulates unique solutions and motivates team members to contribute. Once these ideas have been gathered, they are all evaluated for their merit and worth. The best idea is selected and the design process continues. For our project we brainstormed continually. Before each major task the group would hold a meeting to think up possible solutions and then decide on what to do.

Major milestone that took place in during brainstorming were:

 

When our team was brainstorming on what to research, we chose to simplify the project as much as possible and turn our large task of a condition assessment into small steps.  To accomplish this, we selected the order of research topics that would allow us to have specific smaller goals while striving for our overall purpose of providing a condition assessment.  Our conclusion was that we should: understand our transformer, understand why transformers fail, understand how testing can show current and future failures, and understand how to interpret results of testing into a condition assessment.

While members of our group were present for the transformers visual inspection, all of the testing and data used in the brainstorming section was gathered by APS.

A major problem we encounter during the brainstorming process involved defining our problem statement.  When we first started the project, our goal was to provide a “health” assessment not a condition assessment.  The major difference is that the health assessment was to include an estimate of the remaining health, or life, of the transformer.   After preliminary brainstorming, we knew that this was well beyond ability.  We chose to adapt our project to meet the team’s limits and the customer’s expectations, rather than coming up with an entirely new and unique problem.  A suitable compromise was made, and we decided on a condition assessment that will detail the current state of the transformer, but would not give any predictions on its life.