Designers: The Key to Successful Product Development

by Eckart Frankenberger (Editor), Petra Badke-Schaub (Editor), Herbert Birkhofer (Editor)

Overview

Modern product development means problem solving by teams in complex working environments. Thereby, the design process is influenced by factors from various fields, the task, the individual, the team, and the organisational context. This complex network of influences turns product development into a challenge with requirements for the designers aside from technical problems. This book contains the proceedings of the international symposium Designers - The Key to Successful Product Development held in Darmstadt, Germany, December 1997. During this meeting exponents from different leading research groups in engineering design came together to present and discuss their results. Within this volume different aims, issues and methods of design research are addressed in 23 contributions by different research groups. Structured in six sections according to the main fields of influence, it provides a survey of the state of scientifically-based knowledge and the trends of engineering design research on the influences leading to successful product development.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781447112709
Publisher:	Springer London
Publication date:	12/09/2011
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1998
Pages:	319
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

Section I: Design Research Methods.- Thought and Design - Research Strategies, Single-case Approach and Methods of Validation.- Theoretical Approach in Design Methodology.- Describing Design as a Reflective Practice: Observations on Schon’s Theory of Practice.- An Overview of Descriptive Studies in Relation to a General Design Research Methodology.- The Further Development of Design Methodologies.- Résumé of Section I.- Section II: Individual Influences.- Expert Designers.- How Do Designers from Practice Design?.- Having a Nose for Good Solutions - The Development of Individual Strategies for the Design Process.- Résumé of Section II.- Section III: Team Influences.- Storytelling and Metaphor in the Engineering Design Process.- A Framework for Instrumenting Design Teams.- Forensic Analysis of the Engineering Design Process.- Integration of Group, Individual and External Influences in the Design Process.- Résumé of Section III.- Section IV: Organisational Influences.- The Development Department and Engineering Change Management.- Innovating the Product Development Organisation.- Planetary Organisation Offers Advantages in Project Work.- Résumé of Section IV.- Section V: Task and Process Variables.- Design Thinking - Possible Ways to Successful Solutions in Product Development.- Event Scales and Social Dimensions in Design Practice.- Information Processing and Storage during the Design Process: The Use of a Flexible Information System.- Information Management in the Design Process - Problems, Approaches and Solutions.- Résumé of Section V.- Section VI: Evaluation of Design Work and its 267 Result.- A Model of Product Development Performance.- Valuation of Design Concepts.- Successful Industrial Product Development.- Résumé of Section VI.- Conclusion andOutlook.