A Focus On Use

This article analyses the need and benefit of the working of industrial designers and product engineers together. According to engineers and others at the forefront of product development, to do the job right requires a collaboration involving design engineers, industrial designers, manufacturing engineers, and several other players, like marketing people, all of whom have important knowledge that needs to influence a design. Companies such as Trek Bicycle Corp. and Empire Level Manufacturing Corp. have developed practices that foster innovative, human-centered product development. Experts agree that computer-aided design (CAD) and rapid prototyping applications are the two most helpful systems, even though the two types of designers may use the tools in somewhat several ways. According to Rainer Gawlick, vice president of marketing at SolidWorks in Concord, Massachusetts, current CAD systems can help bridge the design-to-engineering-to-manufacturing gap.