Industrial design - engineering design interaction: Studies of Influencing Factors in Swedish Product Developing Industry

Licentiate thesis, 2002

Worldwide competition with focus on customer and market needs have initialised new demands on product design and development. Form design aspects can be of decisive importance in the choice of technical principle. However, the integration of industrial design and engineering design activities is not trivial. Based on knowledge from empirical studies in industry, this thesis investigates the nature of interaction between industrial design and engineering design professionals, in product development work. Factors, which influence the interaction, such as differences between the disciplines in organisations, design approach, product modelling, etc., have been investigated. Furthermore, a survey has provided an overview of the use of procedures, methods, competencies and product representation in Swedish industry. A discussion about why functional integration does not work and the consequences of that circumstance is presented. The standpoint taken argues that collaboration between industrial designers and engineering designers can be achieved by considering and directing the factors that affect cross-disciplinary interaction in development of the product development setting.