Industry design is a design technique meant to create a product through mass production as a separate stage from manufacturing. Once the design is in place, the manufacture usually consists of assembling the parts in an automatic repetitive process.
Uses
There are different ways of incorporating industry design into a business in order to:
Differentiate: in this case, the design acts as a competitive advantage enabling customer loyalty, brand differentiation or even price premium;
Integrate: it is a resource used to improve the development of a new product towards a more user-friendly model that adapts to customer needs and expectations;
Transform: in order to create new business opportunities, manage change and increase expertise and the business share on the market;
Innovate: businesses will look at types of technology that allows to incorporate the design into a manufacturing scheme;
Raise profits: the success of incorporating an industry design reflects in the increased sales, better margins, a stronger brand value, better return on investment etc.
Benefits
Lower costs: by streamlining the components and by the choose of materials, the production costs are significantly reduced;
Higher adaptability to the market requests: by changing the visual appeal, the product can be easily adapted to customers’ needs and preferences;
Improving performance: it is easier and less costly to adapt the product design to market trends and competitors, and durability can be enhanced in order to ensure greater product longevity;
Drawbacks
Legal requirements: industry design has started to be a highly regulated field and businesses need to meet the changes in legal, design & safety standards, and compliance requirements, which may differ between the country of production and distribution;
Environmental safety requirements: as the impact on the environment is being considered in different industries, regulations have been set in place which require products to be eco-friendly, thus suggesting a higher turnover in designs and patterns that need to follow the global trends on environment assessment;
Equipment use: since production in industry design usually depends on technological equipment, the business needs to take into consideration the down-time for installation, repairs or inspections.
Product Quality: since it is linked to mass production, industry design does not offer the same product quality as handmade artefacts for example, as it is part of a bigger process, and faults in products may not be noticed till the end of the production cycle.
