Research on the relation between conceptual and procedural knowledge has shown that fusing them enhances understanding of domain knowledge. Various methods have been developed to assess undergraduates’ conceptual understanding of a particular domain. Nevertheless, in the teaching and learning of Computer Aided Design (CAD) in higher education, students were not assessed on their conceptual understanding on the utilization of the software. The assessments of outcome were based on procedural or command knowledge rather than the conceptual understanding, which is usually associated with a particular subject matter. In addition, both types of knowledge are emphasized within the context of achieving outcomes of domain related subject matter such as Machine Design or Technical Drawing. Some students might not be aware that there are concepts underlying the procedure they are using. As such, students’ conceptual knowledge in Three Dimensional Computer Aided Design (3D CAD) is as important as their procedural knowledge. The question now arises as to whether the students acquire adequate conceptual knowledge through a formal or informal learning process in higher institution before they are employed by manufacturing industries. This chapter briefly discusses the concept of developing 3D CAD model. Then, categories of the essential concepts in the development of the model are presented. Implementation of Concept Map to assess students’ conceptual understanding on 3D modeling technique will be addressed.

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To make morphological matrix based conceptual design more efficient, a systematic procedure which enables complete extraction of the feasible solution variants (concepts) is developed. The approach entails: functional decomposition, generation of alternative solution principles for each subfunction, formation of combinatorial solution variants chains, and 3D space matrix and multiobjective concept optimisation-based concept screening. The approach was tested using the conceptual design of river cleaning machine. 625 theoretical concepts are obtained from the morphological matrix. The concepts are screened to 114 feasible concepts and optimised to obtain a preliminary design concept. Consequently, the concept selected for the river cleaning machine is outstanding based on efficiency, manufacturability, repairability and cost.