Abstract (EN):
In the past the market economy was dominated by the local and regional design,
characterized for strong links to the customs, traditions and natural resources from each
region.
As the consequence of the technological advances and the growing needs of consumption,
at present, products are manufactured based on economical, functional and marketing
criterions, which means that their design is very offset from the regional and local signs.
Between the challenges that characterize the actual economy, one highlights the existence
of more market niches, product variations and shorter life cycles. To survive in this economy,
marked by the competition and the globalisation, one search to imply in product developing
process, the design, engineering, marketing and production department, that composes a
known industrial methodology called concurrent or simultaneous engineering.
In this article, one intends to exhibit the applications and advantages of the new
technologies, like Rapid Prototyping (RP), that are valuable tools of the concurrent
engineering and to analyse the specific implications in the design history and teaching.
RP is a family of modern technologies that generate three-dimensional solid objects under
computer control. Besides its designation be reported to the first major application that is
industrial prototyping, the RP equipments also allow the rapid tooling and the direct
manufacture of small series or single products.
Nowadays, the commercialisation of RP equipments, termed concept modellers or 3Dprinters
is in great expansion. Although these machines use a very reduced class of cheap
materials with poor mechanical characteristics, they allow the designers to verify and quickly
test the ideas that they are developing during the creative process. The designer can realize in
plenitude the iterative process of creation without the traditional economical and materials
limitations, being enough to send the CAD file directly to the RP equipment placed in a
office, like an usual inkjet printer. So it is possible to test new ideas with better accuracy
before its concretisation, avoiding misunderstandings and delays and inciting the positive
criticism through the involvement of the technical staff from all the related departments.
Particularity, faced to the challenges due to the globalisation, the traditional and regional
industries will find in these technologies the means that they need to ensure its own future
surviving.
This presentation is divided in the following sections:
- Innovation loop in the past and in the present. The iterative process.
- New technologies available to the design and the designers: Rapid Prototyping and
Internet.
- Design Pedagogy: new challenges in the formation of future generations of designers.
- Conclusions and future trends.
Language:
English
Type (Professor's evaluation):
Scientific
No. of pages:
11
License type: