The field of ‘‘Design Theory and Methodology’’ (DTM) has attracted attention of academic researchers and yielded a considerable number of results. Nowadays, these theories are taught in many engineering schools and reported being applied industrially. This current situation stands in a sharp contrast before the 1970s when design was regarded closer to art than to engineering due to insufficiency of knowledge about DTM. However, since there is a tendency that researchers only report ‘‘success stories,’’ it is unclear if they are truly useful. This prevents us from performing vigorous evaluation, and obtaining neutral (in the sense of a third party point of view) overview and under- standing.
This keynote paper is an attempt to obtain vigorous evaluation by collectively gathering neutral information about DTM, particularly focusing on applications of design methodologies in design education and design practice. The scope and context of design education focus specifically on teaching engineering design in mechanical, production and manufacturing engineering, while the discussion of design practice mainly deals with discrete products such as machines and consumer products. Another aspect arises from the integration of further domains in mechanical product development (e.g., mechatronics) that requires coordinating and adapting mechanical, electrical, elec- tronics, and software development approaches. However, most of the design methods and models discussed in this article may still be applicable.