Abstract
The paper deals with improvement in “machine” design in relation to function (specification, durability, and performance), manufacturing cost (processing, redesign, and collaboration with suppliers), and styling. Conscious attempts at improvement in appearance should, in the author's opinion, be the last stage in the general process of improved machine design.
In regard to styling the author stresses the importance of appearance, the functions of the specialist “industrial” designer dealing with appearance and utility in co-operation with the “mechanical” designer, and the need for training of engineering designers in “composition” (by which is meant “what not to do” rather than creative artistry, which springs perhaps from an intuitive rather than an instructed apprehension). Incidentally, the need to consider the buyers' tastes of the moment is the greater for products that do not outlast contemporary fashions.
Improvement in product design may be brought about by the employment of specialist consultants (who are in continual contact with new materials and ideas); by managements' readiness to improve, and to encourage, rather than frustrate, the creative instinct in designers and engineers; by team concentration upon redesign of particular machines; by training young engineers to be product-conscious; and by the introduction of non-specialist technical literature dealing with design in the broadest sense and with the exploitation of new materials and processes.
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