Design Process Improvement: A review of current practice

There is always room for improvement in design. Maybe there is need for a better product, or for a better, more effective and economic, design process-the late delivery of new products has been shown to be the single largest contributor to the loss of company profits in the UK. Our own experience of working with automotive, aerospace and healthcare companies has shown that effective communication, management of change and process planning are essential ingredients for an effective product development process. This book aims to develop an understanding of these issues as a means to facilitate design process improvement. Part I contains a series of review articles written by a team of international experts on models of design, perspectives on design, design practice and design management. Part II provides an introduction to the wealth of academic research on these topics by presenting the activities of research centres from around the world. It is for: business leaders who want to understand the role of design management as a driver for commercial success; design managers who want to improve their company design procedures; designers who want to know how to design more efficiently; researchers who want to explore the field of design process improvement. An up-to-date source of information on design process improvement may be found at: http://www-edc.eng.cam.ac.uk/designprocessbook

Table of Contents:
The reality of design.- Design issues.- Models of designing.- Design planning and modelling.- Systems engineering.- Requirements engineering.- Human resources.- Artificial intelligence for design process improvement.- Complexity.- Thinking and representing in design.- Communication in design.- Engineering change.- Risk in the design process.- Design for X.- Engineering knowledge management.- Quality management.- Workflow for design.- Integrated new product development.- Product portfolio management.- The transfer of methods into industry.- Design research.- Institute of Theoretical Psychology, University of Bamberg.- Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre, University of Bath.- Engineering Design Centre, University of Cambridge.- A culture of design research and teaching, Carnegie Mellon University.- Product Development and Machine Elements, Darmstadt University of Technology.- School of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology.- The Design Group, Technical University of Denmark.- The Systems Realization Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology.- Engineering Design Research, University of Grenoble.- Institute of Machine Design and Automotive Engineering, University of Karlsruhe (TH).- Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University.- Information Technologies in Mechanical Engineering, University of Magdeburg.- Design Process Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.- Institute of Product Development, Technische Universität München.- Engineering Design Centre, University of Newcastle.- Center for Design Research, Stanford University.- Integrated Product Development, the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.- The CAD Centre, University of Strathclyde.- BAE SYSTEMS/Rolls-Royce University Technology Partnership for Design.- M.J.Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University.- Technological Innovation Research Group, Politecnico di Torino.- Intelligent Interactive Distributed Systems, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.- The Center for Engineering Learning and Technology, University of Washington.