Investigating collaboration between industrial designers and engineering designers: A Singapore Context

In the competitive commercial environment, ‘time to market’ is a key issue. Global markets demand well-designed products of high quality with best possible prices and short lead times. To facilitate this, manufacturers have adopted concurrent product development approaches, spearheaded by collaboration strategies. As a result, product development has seen more attempts at greater integration activity among the disciplines of industrial design (ID) and engineering design (ED). This paper gives an overview of current collaboration methodologies used by industry and investigates the level of collaboration between IDs and EDs in the Singapore context. Empirical research through interviews and observations outline three distinct issues in collaborative activity, namely: conflicts in values and principles, different tools and methods used for representation, and differences in cross-functional education. The findings reveal a continuing gap between ID and ED, and the authors propose several approaches for future research. More importantly, this study highlights the importance of design collaboration and brings to attention current industry issues with the aim of achieving a more effective product development process.