Abstract
Product design process cannot be explained without both industrial design and engineering design. However, the two fields have different design approaches toward product design. This study explored different types of combined design approaches that companies adopt with industrial design and engineering design. Industrial designers and engineering designers from six global consumer product companies were interviewed. As a result, three different types of combined design approaches; Industrial design-led design process, engineering design-led design process, and cooperative design process were identified. The companies adopted the processes differently based on their purpose and situations. In particular, Industrial design-led design process cases were strongly implemented by the CEOs’ strong support who believed industrial design is the primary route to secure competitiveness of their products. However, engineering design-led process was mainly used for redesign of existing products. In cooperative design process, both design groups work collaboratively in concept design phase.
Keywords
corporate design process, industrial design, engineering design, product design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.241
Citation
Kim, K. (2016) How Companies adopt different Design approaches, in Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Future Focused Thinking - DRS International Conference 2016, 27 - 30 June, Brighton, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.241
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
How Companies adopt different Design approaches
Product design process cannot be explained without both industrial design and engineering design. However, the two fields have different design approaches toward product design. This study explored different types of combined design approaches that companies adopt with industrial design and engineering design. Industrial designers and engineering designers from six global consumer product companies were interviewed. As a result, three different types of combined design approaches; Industrial design-led design process, engineering design-led design process, and cooperative design process were identified. The companies adopted the processes differently based on their purpose and situations. In particular, Industrial design-led design process cases were strongly implemented by the CEOs’ strong support who believed industrial design is the primary route to secure competitiveness of their products. However, engineering design-led process was mainly used for redesign of existing products. In cooperative design process, both design groups work collaboratively in concept design phase.