Exploiting - to produce an efficient process to make – New Goods and Services.
There is a formal way that industrial designers are involved in the assessment of the
packaging process, for efficiency gains in packing on the factory line and in the end user
experience of unpacking the product. Important criteria include, ease and economy of
materials, adherence or awareness of cultural sensibilities in packing materials, and the
maintenance of the right perception of the overall product value.
Taking the Work of the Discussion Groups Further
With these discussions completed the next stage is to create versions of the diagram that are
annotated to describe the industrial design process in the particular company. And to locate
aspects of the activity with whatever mechanisms are currently in use to manage innovation
and product development. These might be charts, a series of project stages or gates, or some
form of innovation funnel.
It is important to keep in the forefront of the mind that the purpose is:
· To identify where aspects of this industrial design development process , fit or are
included within, the recognised and formally acknowledged processes of innovation and
product development.
· To identify who carries responsibility for these aspects.
· To note those parts of the industrial design process that appear not to be in existence.
· To review the total situation, to be sure nothing has been overlooked, or simply described
differently.
· To draw up a prioritised list of improvements.
The diagram, its output points, process tracks and accompanying four statements, assist in
creating new awareness of industrial design. Helping individuals to see how they are a part of
an industrial design process, even if they are not specialist industrial designers. There are no
hard metrics involved, since this is much more of an introductory and self improvement
framework.
There are accompanying set of questions that can be used to aid the discussion groups and
these can be found in the appendix. There are, in addition, a small set of questions that will
help in a review of a design function.
10. Situations to Use the Design Sequence Framework
To see how a development team might make further use of the design sequence framework, in
the course of a new project, we could consider the following scenario:
Here a company has briefed an external design consultancy. They are a well respected
manufacturer of traditional porcelain tableware. They wish to diversify, producing a small
range of objects for the home that can be sold as gifts. The director for marketing contacts a
well known industrial design consultancy that have offices all over the world.