Collaborative product design processes between industrial designers and engineering designers - A case study of six consumer product companies

Abstract

Well-designed products are the result of the integrated and collaborative contributions of industrial design and engineering design. Yet, there has been a dichotomous view of the two disciplines. Within the engineering design field, industrial design has been regarded as an afterthought relating only to the artistic aspects of a product appearance. Researches on the design process have also been dichotomized into prescriptive and descriptive perspectives. The former, developed by engineering design researchers, defines steps and procedures for designers to follow and the latter describes designers’ cognitive processes in problem-solving activities. Few design processes have clarified what is happening in actual design cases in the collaborative context of industrial designers and engineering designers. In this regard, this research aims at understanding both integrated product design processes and dynamic interactions between the two professional groups in the real world. Specifically, the findings present the types of integrated product design processes, models and the relevant corporate strategies. The present study also intends to suggest guidelines to increase efficient collaborative moves between industrial designers and engineering designers by considering conflicts between them and strategies to resolve such conflicts.To this end, 18 industrial designers and 16 engineering designers from six consumer product companies were interviewed in-depth about design activities they were involved in. Integrated product design processes were constructed with the ‘mosaic method’ where partial design processes that individual respondents experienced were merged into one. As a result, four types of integrated design processes were identified; Type 1: ID-led Concept-driven Process, Type 2: ID-led Combined Outside-inside Process, Type 3: ED-led Inside-first Process and, Type 4: ID&ED Synergetic Process. It revealed that companies tended to employ ID-led processes to dev...