Towards a design for frugal: review of implications for product design

Since 2010 the concept of frugal innovation has increasingly attracted the attention of both researchers and industry. Frugal innovation holds much promise in the rapidly changing global economy. It has been suggested that this approach needs to be understood by product designers in order to integrate it into product development and bring frugal products into the market place. This research aims to review the current literature on frugal innovation and identify characteristics and methodologies for designing frugal products that has been proposed until now. Our review has analysed 28 journal articles. The results have found 10 design principles and 2 design methodologies that have been developed to achieve frugal products. More research has to be carried out to relate these methods with product development theories and understand the impact for product design practice

When design never ends - a future scenario for product development

One of the foundations of product design is the division between production and design. This division manifests as designers aspiring to create fixed iconic archetypes and production replicates endlessly in thousands or millions. Today innovation and technological change are challenging this idea of product design and manufacturing. The evolution of Rapid Prototyping into Additive Manufacturing (AM), is challenging the notion of mass manufacture and consumer value. As AM advances in capability and capacity, the ability to economically manufacture products in low numbers with high degrees of personalisation poses questions of the accepted product development process. Removing the need for dedicated expensive tooling also eliminates the cyclical timescales and commitment to fixed designs that investment in tooling demands. The ability to alter designs arbitrarily, frequently and responsively means that the traditional design process need not be applied and because of this, design processes and practice might be radically different in the future. In this paper, we explore this possible evolution by drawing parallels with principles and development models found in software development

When design never ends - a future scenario for product development

One of the foundations of product design is the separation of the design process and production (i.e. mass manufacturing). This separation manifests as designers going through a rigorous process aspiring to create fixed archetypes that are then replicated in the thousands or even millions. Today innovation and technological change are challenging this idea of a product design process that ends and hands over to manufacturing. The evolution of 3D Printing into Additive Manufacturing (AM) is challenging the notion of mass manufacture and consumer value. As AM advances in capability and capacity, the ability to economically manufacture products in low numbers with high degrees of personalisation poses questions of the accepted product development process. Removing the need for dedicated expensive tooling for mass manufacture also eliminates the cyclical timescales and commitment to fixed designs that investment in tooling demands. The ability to alter designs arbitrarily, frequently and responsively means that the traditional design process need not be applied and because of this, design processes and practice might be radically different in the future. In this paper, we explore this possible evolution by drawing parallels with the principles and development models found in software development

Contribution of smartpens to design studies in capturing design process

The paper focuses on technical and methodological aspects of using smartpens to capture sketching activities in the idea generation stage. Aiming to consider a more effective way to capture designers’ decisions, moves, verbal and non-verbal cues; the paper attempts to provide a critical appraisal of how smartpen-based recording system are able to improve small-scale observational studies’ rigorousness and increases richness of data. Comparison of conventional pen-and-video and smartpen devices are illustrated, by conducting two think-aloud design sessions using both mechanisms. Advantages and disadvantages will be analysed to provide balance views of the two tools. In general, both are able to capture sequences of thoughts, including moving through one page to another. Preliminary findings show that smartpens are somewhat superior in terms of: obtaining unobstructed views of the sketching process as result of participants’ hand/shadow or glare, pencast (replayed video) aids exploration of design strategies investigation, auto-synchronised thinking aloud (verbal) and sketching (actions) foster the effectiveness of study, minimal use of a single recording device and also possibly promote exploration in shading, textual aids, contextual aids and other cues of sketches. However, pen-and-video tools are more efficient at capturing hand gestures. Some recommendations for future studies are also suggested

Investigating designers’ preferred learning media to design for additive manufacturing

In this exploratory study, designers’ preferred learning media in learning to design for Additive Manufacturing was explored. Furthermore, by deploying an online survey questionnaire, factors such as years of experience, and the categories of products designed were explored to understand how they influence designers’ learning media with a response from 201 respondents. The results show that designers have learned how to design for AM through experimentation and present the first step towards developing an appropriate Design for Additive Manufacturing knowledge dissemination approach.</p

A comparative study between 3-axis and 5-axis additively manufactured samples and their ability to resist compressive loading

One of the main limitations of parts made with Material Extrusion (ME) is their anisotropic mechanical behaviour. This behaviour limits the functionality of these components in multi-directional loading conditions. A critical factor for this mechanical behaviour is the poor bonding between layers. 5-axis ME has the capability to orientate the printed layers in order to limit the effect of poor inter-laminar bonding. Previous studies have investigated 5-axis ME, but not fully explored 5-axis capabilities of this manufacturing technique. To address this gap, this paper compares the mechanical behaviour of 3-axis and 5-axis ME samples when subjected to compressive loading. The results demonstrate how depositing material in “3D layers” can improve the consistency of a sample’s mechanical behaviour. This study indicates that 5-axis ME can enable more isotropic behaviour in printed samples

Economic analysis of plastic additive manufacturing for production of end use products: a preliminary study

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has enjoyed a rapid development over the past decade, and the improved process capability brings a number of attractive potentials for direct manufacturing of end use components and products. However, there is a lack of assessment for the economical use of this novel technology. This paper reports on an initial study focusing on the economic viability of using plastic AM as a production method for low to high volume production. A test product was designed and the AM production costs were obtained from ten AM service providers across Europe, which were further compared with injection moulding and vacuum casting. The analysis results show that AM is economically viable for low to medium batch production for up to 100 parts, which could save up to two third of the production cost per part compared with injection moulding. This indicates that plastic AM has the potential to be a bridge to higher volume production

Complexity is not for free: the impact of component complexity on additive manufacturing build time

‘Complexity for free’ has often been claimed as one of the main advantages of additive manufacturing. Several authors have promoted the idea that additive manufacturing allows the fabrication of complex geometries without any increase in the cost of production. Many examples have proven how additive manufacturing can fabricate complex and intricate geometries. However, little attention has been given to the impact that shape complexity has on building time and/or material consumption. This paper explores the effect of shape complexity on part cost in Fused Deposition Modelling and challenges the mainstream assumption that additive manufacturing technologies provide ‘Complexity for free’. A small scale experiment is presented where different shape complexities were produced and their building time and material consumption analysed. The case for the experiment was a load cell holder for a scientific instrument. Four shape types of the holder namely ‘X’, ‘G1’, ‘G2’ and ‘G3’ were compared. The results show how shape complexity increases both building time and material consumption and therefore have a negative impact on part cost. These findings also highlight the need for a revision of the idea of ‘complexity for free’ and in-depth discussion around the concepts of ‘simple’, ‘basic’ and ‘optimal’ design for Fused Deposition Modelling. In addition, other design considerations relating to shape complexity are raised

A preliminary comparison of desk and panel crit settings in the design studio

© 2015, The Design Society. All rights reserved. 'Desk Crit' has been described as the most important critique setting for teaching design. This approach has been shown to be beneficial in providing different perspectives on design problems to students and bridging to professional practice. However, some issues may be envisaged in this style. In this paper, we try to address these issues by adopting a panel based critique setting named 'Panel Crit' in a second year product design studio. The 'Panel Crit' setting is then compared with the 'Desk Crit' setting through a questionnaire and a structured interview with 16 students. The survey protocol is based on an evaluation of teaching survey and consists of 12 close-ended and three open-ended questions. The protocol compares the critique styles across four dimensions: communication, learning, feedback and satisfaction. The preliminary results reveal the effectiveness of a panel-based critique in providing unambiguous feedback, avoiding multiple presentations and increasing time efficiency during studio sessions. However, our results confirm previous research findings which highlight the importance of 'Desk Crit' in conveying fundamental design skills, introducing students to design practice and showing practitioner's approaches to design problems. We believe our findings could contribute to the understanding of how critique settings impact student's learning experience in design studio

Interplay of sketches and mental imagery in the design ideation stage of novice designers

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This paper seeks to understand the interplay between the acts of pen-and-paper-based sketching and the use of mental imagery. A protocol study of four novice designers was conducted in two different environments: with access to sketches only; and blindfolded and delayed sketches. In total there were eight 45 minute design sessions. This study confirms that sketches and mental imagery support ideation stages in unique ways and both are equally germane. Identified interplaying roles when only sketches are utilized are: supporting, co-evolving, and reflecting roles. In addition, interplay can happen at the exact moment or distantly; and the order of an interplay depends on the designers’ strategy. In sessions where sketches are for externalizing design proposals only at the end, identified roles are: generative and provocative to idea exploration. It is also observed that gesture does not compensate for the absence of external representation, although it conveys important design messages