Design for manufacturing: Learning processes of a New Product Development design team

This research examines how a New Product Development (NPD) design team incorporated multidisciplinary knowledge to redesign a modular cab. Design teams that implement digital innovation often use cutting edge techniques, such artificial intelligence and big data, to inform their design decisions. However, these techniques are often managed by other teams with different knowledge backgrounds. Therefore, optimising learning processes between multidisciplinary teams is crucial to design new products effectively. This research reviews existing team learning processes, then conducted a case study to examine how a NPD design team learn from an interaction team to integrate knowledge into their design process. Aside from the information processes established in the literature review, we found that design teams working in interdisciplinary projects also translated and contextualised their information to ensure knowledge accuracy.

keywords: team learning; information processing; new product development

• with: Linlin Yang (lead), Jiang Xu, and Fei Fan
• year: September 2023 – June 2024
• for: Design Research Society, DRS Conference 2024
• download: Article