Design and Core Competency, The Missing Links.

International audienceDesigning in an industrial context is a very complex activity. It needs the integration of heterogeneous knowledge or skills, to transform a set of ill-defined requirements into an artefact that satisfies esthetical, functional, technical, economical criteria. Design process optimization with methods like system engineering and core competency building are key issues for managers of product development process, design skills networks, communities of design practices... In the literature, these issues have been dealt with separately. In this paper, we propose a framework of reference that helps us to explicit the content of the core design competency. This framework is a first step beyond an efficient compentency based management of design structures