1.0 INTRODUCTION
The role of design in the development of competitiveness for UK Industry is well established and very important(1,2.). The role of innovation, development of new products, the incorporation of new technologies, the development of new processes, both operational and manufacturing are key aspects of Government strategy. The DTI(Department of Trade and Industry), the EPSRC(Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), Royal Academy of Engineering, Engineering Council and other Professional Institutions have made significant contributions that highlight the role of design, develop the research base and disseminate best practice.
Design has also developed as an academic discipline in its own right with a developing body of knowledge and developing academic rigor associated with it. This has manifested itself in a number of ways. There are well respected academic journals in the area; the ASME(American Society of Mechanical Engineers) and ICED(International Conference on Engineering Design) series of conferences attract good papers and a true international following (e.g. ICED '97, 600 delegates, 38 countries) and there is a good design research community, in particular in the UK, the Northern European Countries and the USA. This has been helped in no small way by the EPSRC with their support for design research in general and through the establishment of the Engineering Design Centres in particular. Also the EPSRC IMI(Innovative Manufacturing) initiative has had significant impact with its focus on processes. This support can be seen in the extensive range of projects listed in the research status reports for the old DIP(Design and Integrated Production) programme (3) and the Engineering Design Centres(EDCs)(4,5,6,7). It also is clearly an area that features both in the EPSRC response to Foresight (8) and the Programme Landscapes (9), where integrated design and manufacture is seen as " a generic element .. aimed at achieving a more holistic approach to the design/manufacture/distribution life cycle".. the approach to include both 'soft systems methodologies and hard technologies'.
The DTI has been involved in design extensively, particularly with the launch of BS7000(10) and the influential "Managing into the 90's booklets(11,12,13,14,15,16) which emerged from the introduction of that design standard.
To maintain this momentum and to help support the ongoing role of design in developing competitiveness the DTI and the EPSRC funded a workshop entitled "Future issues for design research"(FIDR) in February 1999. This workshop was held in Bath and brought together leading industrialists, design practitioners and design researchers from the UK together with two international contributors. The workshop reflected on design research achievements, established the requirements of industry and proposed key research areas over the next 10 years. The workshop was formulated to understand the needs in this area of medium and small businesses.
1.1 Background and related work
There had been no such workshop or forum held in the UK to consider such issues, nevertheless the format has been used to some effect in the USA. In particular the National Science Federation (NSF) has used this format very successfully over the years. It has funded two workshops on design research, one in 1986 (17) and more recently in 1996 (18).
The 1986 report was particularly influential identifying, as it did, five key areas:
This report laid the foundation for a large programme of work funded by by the NSF, including design research centres at for example at Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburg, PA. Indirectly it led to the establishment of the Research in Engineering Design Journal and the Design Theory and Methodology stream of the ASME engineering technical conferences.
The 1996 NSF report paid particular attention to establishing the needs of Industry and mapping them on to the activities and priorities of Design Research activity. It focussed on the 12 areas listed below.
The 1996 highlighted the external changes(18) influencing US industry as follows
Changes in Product
Product development process
Marketplace
Partnering
Technology
Society
It is clear that these apply equally in the UK. The drivers on the UK product development or design process are dealt with in Section 2.1.
In 1992 the EPSRC (SERC) funded an Expert Meeting in conjunction with the IMechE on Information Technology and Product Design (19,20). Arguably this meeting was not followed up as it might have been and impetus was lost.
There was some debate at ICED '97 (8) on the problems/nature and direction of engineering design research. The large international audience also had some concerns, particularly associated with the direction and effectiveness that needed to be considered.
1.2 Aims and Objectives
The Bath workshop had the following specific objectives:
1.3 Format
The overall process is shown diagrammatically in Figure 1.
The workshop was split in to four syndicate groups(Appendix 1) with all groups a 50/50 split between industrialists and academics. The first two groups(A & B) reflected medium to small organisations and the last two(C & D) large organisations.
The workshop was split into four sessions with the first two sessions in groups only. This was done to establish a base range of opinion. The last two session used a converging group format(See timetable Appendix 1) whereby the groups met individually, then in pairs and then all together.
The themes of the first four sessions were as follows:
The discussions in these themes was guide by a series of pre-prepared questions as listed in Appendix 1.
1.4 Additional Input
There were four items of additional input to the workshop, two keynote speakers, an overview of the new European Framework V research programme, a pre-workshop request for information and a end of workshop questionnaire questionnaire.
1.4.1 Keynote speakers
The keynote speakers were Dr Crispin Hales of Triodyne Inc., USA, Chair Elect of the ASME Design Division and author of 'Engineering Design Management', and Professor Mogens Myrup-Andreasen of the Technical University of Denmark, and author of many books on Design Process, Design for Assembly etc.. They reviewed past, present and future issues in the Design and Design Research area from an American and European mainland perspective. Their papers are included in Appendices 2 and 3
1.4.2 Framework V
The 5th framework research programme of the European Community has 4 major areas, one of which is 'Information Society Technologies'. It is within this theme that it considered that there are good opportunities for "Manufacturing" and hence Design related research. The overview and two lists of key action areas are shown in Appendix 4.
1.4.3 Pre-Workshop request for information
Prior to the workshop each participant was requested to bring to the workshop a list of their opinion on the following:-
These were subjected to a cluster analysis and are described in Section 4
1.4.4 End of workshop questionnaire
This was based on the issues discussed at the 1996 NSF Workshop referred to above(Ref 18) and is included in Appendix 1.
