Planning for the Unknown: Case Studies of Design-Driven Industrial Conversion in the Automotive Sector as a Way to Overcome Crises and Uncertainties

This paper explores the role of a design-led orientation strategy for automotive firms. Specifically, the study examines the industrial conversion strategies of companies that have found new markets thanks to the discipline of design. Indeed, the central thesis of this paper is to investigate how design can boost entrepreneurship, managerial procedures, and be a source of competitive advantage. Commonly, industrial conversion has been studied by many researchers belonging to the area of management. However, studies on the role of industrial designers in corporate strategies represent a growing domain in design. The research is based on three case studies of Italian companies that have produced components for the automotive sector for years and following a moment of instability, used their expertise to move into different markets. The paper shows a tool developed by Harvard University to display new opportunities based on existing capabilities. The analyzed visionary companies broke away from one production sector and ventured into new ones where design was a strategic lever. As the case studies show, industrial reconversion brings companies “back to life” and makes them flexible and resilient to sudden changes, thanks to switching products and markets based on existing capacities. What emerges is that industrial conversion is a winning strategy in cases of corporate crisis where sunk costs are to be exploited to explore new opportunities. Starting from this, we can assume and replicate comparable strategies in companies currently experiencing difficulties due to the changing technological paradigms in the automotive sector

The Contribution of Design Discipline in Business Decisions through Design-Oriented Production Diversification: A Case Study in Italian Furniture Sector

Firm diversification is a growth strategy that allows firms to launch new products in untapped markets to increase revenue. It is the identified approach where industrial designers can contribute to exploring new tactical assets. The paper analyses the design-oriented diversification of a furniture company in Italy, where Design played a crucial role in positioning new demands. The tool applied to display the current and the feasible product portfolio is the Product Space. The company has leveraged its know-how on bent glass to produce iconic objects, winning prestigious design awards

Design-driven Industrial conversion during COVID-19 Global Outbreak. A systemic business strategy and design approaches to face a complex market crisis

This paper highlights the evolution of designers' responsibility during an unexpected emergency period like the COVID-19 outbreak. This process will be described through a set of case studies showing that the design discipline is resilient and capable of gathering the proper needs at the right time and relieve market tensions. Indeed, designers can help companies in the process of industrial conversion, an ambidextrous strategy that allows producing what is missing but extremely urgent during an emergency. The paper describes via case studies the way firms converted to produce necessary goods such as clean hand sanitiser, lung ventilators and the personal protective equipment needed by citizens and medical personnel. During the COVID-19 emergency period, what are, and have been, the challenges for designers? What new expertise, skills, activities will the designer have to gain? How designers give innovative answers with new activities to support companies during emergencies? The answer was found in the designers' ability to examine the problem holistically and choose the most innovative and contextually appropriate solutions. Together with management ingenuity, they also fit in with ambidextrous strategies that direct the company towards new opportunities by exploiting the resources already belonging to the firm, untangling the economic complexity

Nuovi materiali. Tecnologie e approcci per l’infrastrutturazione dell’ambiente montano

Materiali e tecnologie avanzate si sono largamente diffusi ed evoluti negli ultimi anni e hanno trovato applicazione nel settore delle infrastrutture per l’ambiente montano: non solo per strutture alpinistiche, d’alta quota, ma anche per costruzioni, a quote più basse, sostenibili, energeticamente autonome, leggere, flessibili, adatte a usi temporanei, come ad esempio, alpeggi, punti di ristoro, punti tappa

Nuovi materiali. Tecnologie e approcci per l’infrastrutturazione dell’ambiente montano

Materiali e tecnologie avanzate si sono largamente diffusi ed evoluti negli ultimi anni e hanno trovato applicazione nel settore delle infrastrutture per l’ambiente montano: non solo per strutture alpinistiche, d’alta quota, ma anche per costruzioni, a quote più basse, sostenibili, energeticamente autonome, leggere, flessibili, adatte a usi temporanei, come ad esempio, alpeggi, punti di ristoro, punti tappa

Questões avançadas de design: uma abordagem estratégica e investigativa para projetos sem mercado

The economic crisis that has hit countries in the west in recent years has generated a decline in the presence and the strength of the entrepreneurial class and also of its traditional role of “customer” of the design sector. Design has recently responded to this new situation by generating new working methods. Politecnico di Torino has evolved its classic demanding approach to design and brought it up to date by incorporating “explorative” capacities into the training of its students, providing them with the necessary skills to cope with an absence of market, proposing the designer as a key fi gure capable of exploring existing situations and off ering new solutions. The aim of this paper is to show how, in the absence of market, the strategies that Exploring Design can implement generate system-product, process, service design projects that are always original and innovative, capable of leading quite easily to new methods, business ideas and spheres of activity in which customers can become involved later on.Keywords: Advanced design, Exploring Design, Design education, Design methodology.A crise econômica que atingiu os países do oeste nos últimos anos tem gerado uma queda na presença e na força da classe empresarial e também no seu tradicional papel de “cliente” do setor de design. O design recentemente respondeu a essa nova situação gerando novos métodos de trabalho. A Politecnico di Torino tem evoluído a sua abordagem clássica para projetar e a mantém atualizada incorporando capacidades “exploratórias” na formação dos seus alunos, proporcionando-lhes as habilidades necessárias para lidar com a ausência de mercado, apresentando o designer como uma fi gura importante capaz de explorar as situações existentes e oferecendo novas soluções. O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar como, na ausência de mercado, as estratégias que Explorando o Design pode implementar, gerando produto do sistema, processo, projetos de design que são sempre originais e inovadores, capazes de conduzir facilmente a novos métodos, ideias de negócios e esferas de atividade em que os clientes possam se envolver no futuro.Palavras-chave: Design avançado, Explorando o Design, Educação do design, Metodologia de design

Advanced Design issues: a strategic and investigating research approach to design without a market

The economic crisis that has hit countries in the west in recent years has generated a decline in the presence and the strength of the entrepreneurial class and also of its traditional role of "customer" of the design sector. Design has recently responded to this new situation by generating new working methods. Politecnico di Torino has evolved its classic demanding approach to design and brought it up to date by incorporating "explorative" capacities into the training of its students, providing them with the necessary skills to cope with an absence of market, proposing the designer as a key fi gure capable of exploring existing situations and off ering new solutions. The aim of this paper is to show how, in the absence of market, the strategies that Exploring Design can implement generate system-product, process, service design projects that are always original and innovative, capable of leading quite easily to new methods, business ideas and spheres of activity in which customers can become involved later on. Keywords: Advanced design, Exploring Design, Design education, Design methodology

New design-oriented directions for the regional economy: proposal of a framework for classifying industrial conversions and product diversification cases in mature industries

Design and Innovation Management find common ground and interesting collaborations in defining strategies that manufacturing companies can implement in extreme circumstances. Design-oriented industrial conversion and product diversification could be an outcome of such strategies, identified to explore and manage emerging technological paradigms. This research focuses on manufacturing companies within industrial districts that are in difficulty and try to orient them towards new strategic directions, driven by product design. For this purpose, the research proposes a framework for classifying case studies of companies that have successfully applied the strategies mentioned above. It displays expansion directions, sectors, products or processes that could be of value for a territorial context

RICONVERSIONE INDUSTRIALE NEI CLUSTER PRODUTTIVI Design e conservazione attiva del know-how locale

La disciplina del Design è chiamata a contribuire alla salvaguardia e alla trasmissione della cultura produttiva delle economie di agglomerazione, come Distretti industriali, cluster e network, cultura minacciata dalla tendenza a spostare la supply-chain fuori dal territorio, con una conseguente perdita di identità e know-how locale. Il territorio, considerato il ‘design-object’ dello studio, è analizzato tramite una visione olistica ed esplorativa, che evidenzia gli aspetti socioculturali e le relazioni fra gli attori tramite gigamappe. La complessità economica del capitale produttivo territoriale è sistematizzata con schemi che mostrano le connessioni tra i prodotti in base alle capacità produttive aziendali. La riconversione industriale è la strategia individuata per esplorare e ge- stire i paradigmi tecnologici emergenti, in grado di creare nuovi prodotti che raccontino la cultura produttiva locale

Merchandising as a strategic tool to enhance and spread intangible values of cultural resources

The design of cultural and environmental goods can aim at valorising both material and immaterial cultural heritage at different scales. Specifically, the merchandising product, which is often the victim of production stereotypes, can instead collaborate with a disruptive force in the construction of the non-ephemeral “sense” of a visit. It is, in fact, able to spread complex contents in scientifically correct and comprehensible ways for different targets, condensing the immaterial patrimony into (small) new, low-cost and rich-in-meaning artefacts. This case study, proposed as evidence of such an approach, pertains to a research and teaching activity that was developed in 2017 with 230 university students of design, with the aim of setting up a collection of dedicated merchandising products for a regional talc mine Ecomuseum. The challenge involved narrating the material culture of the location through products that were philologically coherent with the context, but new from the language, functionality, productivity, user involvement and economic accessibility points of view. The resulting projects are, at present, being screened by the Ecomuseum in order to select the most significant for future production. In conclusion, the activity was shown to be potentially scalable and repeatable in other contexts, in which design can valorise an intangible heritage of immense value through products that, inserted into a more extensive strategy of valorisation of the cultural heritage, are within the reach of all