Categories of Engineering Knowledge

W. G. Vincenti has categorized types of engineering knowledge and the way this types of knowledge is developed. The categories of engineering knowledge are as-
1. Fundamental design concepts: operational principles of the devices.
2. Criteria and Specifications: It is necessary to translate the qualitative goals for the device into specific, quantitative goals. Design criteria vary widely in perceptibility.
3. Theoretical tools: Mathematical tools, physical principles, and theories based on scientific principles but motivated by and limited to a technologically important class of phenomena or even to a specific device.
4. Quantitative data: Descriptive (physical constants) and prescriptive (how things should be) data.
5. Practical considerations: an array of less sharply defined considerations derived from experience in practice, considerations that frequently do not lend themselves to theorizing, tabulation, or programming into a computer.
6. Design instrumentalities: These refer to the procedural knowledge. Include the procedures, way of thinking and judgmental skills by which it is done.

Ref: Vincenti W. G., "What Engineers Know and How They Know It, Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History", Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, Year - 1990