2. Explain the industrial design process in detail?

Sunday 9 February 2014

2. Explain the industrial design process in detail?


Industrial Design (ID) is the professional service of creating and developing concepts and specifications that optimize the function, value and appearance of products and systems for the mutual benefit of both user and manufacturer.

The industrial design process consists of the following phases:

1. Investigation of customer needs

2. Conceptualization

3. Preliminary refinement

4. Further refinement and final concept selection

5. Control drawings

6. Co-ordination with engineering, manufacturing and vendors

1.INVESTIGATION OF CUSTOMER NEEDS

Since industrial designers are skilled at recognizing issues involving user interactions ,industrial design involvement is crucial in the needs process .For example ,for a new medical instrument, the team would study an operating room ,interview physicians .While involvement for marketing, engineering and industrial design leads to a common ,comprehensive understanding of the customer need.

2.CONCEPTUALIZATION

Once the customer needs and constraints are understood, the industrial designers help the team to conceptualize the product. Here attention is for finding solutions to the technical sub functions for the product.

    The industrial designers concentrate upon creating the product’s form and user interfaces. Industrial designers make simple sketches, known as thumbnail sketches, of each concept. These sketches are a fast and inexpensive medium for expressing ideas and evaluating possibilities.
The proposed concepts may then be matched and combined with the technical solutions under exploration. Concepts are grouped and evaluated by the team according to the customer needs, technical feasibility, cost, and manufacturing considerations.

3.PRELIMINARY REFINEMENT

In this stage, industrial designers build models of the most promising concepts. Soft models are typically made in full scale using foam or foam core-board. These models allow the development team to express and visualize product concepts in three dimensions. Designers will build as many models as possible depending on time and financial constraints.

4.FURTHER REFINEMENT AND FINAL CONCEPT SELECTION

At this stage, industrial designers often switch from soft models and sketches to hard models and information – intensive drawings known as renderings .Drawn in two or three dimensionally ,they convey a great deal ,of information about the product .The final refinement step before selecting a concept is to create hard models. They are made from wood, dense foam, plastic or metal, are painted and textured, and have some working features such as buttons that push or sliders that move. Since it is costly, a product development team has the budget to make only a few.

5.CONTROL DRAWINGS

Industrial designers complete their design process by making control drawings of the final concepts. These drawings document functionality, features, sizes, colours, surface finishes and key dimensions.

6.CO-ORDINATION WITH ENGINEERING, MANUFACTURING AND VENDORS

The designers must continue to work closely with engineering and manufacturing personnel throughout the subsequent product development process. Some industrial design consulting firms offer quite comprehensive product development services, including detailed engineering design and the selection and management of outside vendors of materials, tooling, components and assembly services.

The benefits of using industrial design process include increased product appeal and greater customer satisfaction through additional features, strong brand identity and product differentiation. Industrial design helps to establish a corporate identity. Industrial design determines a product’s style, which is directly related to the public perception of the firm.

The industrial design process if properly implemented will provide all of the above mentioned features.


0 comments :

Post a Comment