Selection Of Materials Or Components

Two designers are asked to specify the handle for a garden fork. One writes ash. The other writes ash, kiln dried, certified from a managed source, bought as standard 32 millimetre turned stock from a supplier who can deliver within a week, at a price that leaves the fork under the retail figure the buyer set. Only one of them has actually made a selection. The other has made a preference.

This lesson is about the difference. The specification names eight factors that a material or component must be judged against: functionality, aesthetics, environmental factors, availability, cost, social factors, cultural factors and ethical factors. You will learn what each one means in the specification's own terms, how they conflict with one another, and how to reach a defensible decision when they do. You will also cost a bulk buying decision, because the specification names the advantages of bulk buying explicitly and the specimen paper asked about it. This is specialist technical principles content, examined in Section B of Paper 1, and it is delivered through at least one main material category, so the material area you built your prototype in is the one to answer on.