A Design Management and Design Thinking Approach for Developing Smart Product Service System Design: Projects from Online Industrial Design Studio

Abstract

Industrial design as profession has begun to expand its scope in business practices with the recent developments in design management, design thinking, and technology. However, curricula of industrial design studio remain traditional and mainly focuses on designing products. In fact, design management and design thinking go beyond product design and expand design’s scope to establishing business strategies, design innovation and service design by positioning humans and their needs at the center. Besides, the technological shift happened through Industry 4.0 enables to adapt IT hardware into systems, products and services, and make them smart and unified. To keep up with these paradigm changes and prepare our students to the rapidly changing business environment, we initiate a Smart Product Service System (Smart -PSS) design project with the 3rd-grade students of Bahçeşehir University in the 2019-2020 Spring semester during which online education has just become a part of our lives. In this article, we presented three student projects as case studies of Smart-PSSs that were designed in three stages as system design, product design, and interface design. As a result, students gain a more holistic approach toward the design process, acknowledge the new expansions of industrial design, and its transformative role for businesses.

Keywords

• Smart Product Service System (Smart SPSS)
• Design Management
• Design Thinking
• Online Education
• Industrial Design Studio

References

1. Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86(6), 85-92.
2. Cooper, R. & Press, M. (1995). A guide to successful design management: The design agenda. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
3. Cooper, R., Junginger, S., & Lockwood, T. (2009). Design thinking and design management: A research and practice perspective. Design Management Review, 20(2), 46-55.
4. Crul, M., Diehl, J. C., & Ryan, C. (2009). Design for sustainability-A step-by-step approach. UNEP, Paris.
5. Diehl, J. C., & Christiaans, H. H. C. M. (2015). Product service system: The future for designers. In Proceedings of the International Design Conference of KSDS and ADADA with CUMULUS (pp.17-18).
6. DMI [Design Management Institute]. (2021a, March 13). What is Design Management? http://www.dmi.org/?WhatisDMI
7. DMI [Design Management Institute]. (2021b, March 15). What is Design Thinking? https://www.dmi.org/page/WhatisDesignThink
8. Farr, M. (1965). Design management: Why is it needed now? Design Journal, 200(8): 38–39.

9. Kotler, P. & Rath, G. A. (1984). “Design: A powerful but neglected strategic tool. Journal of Business Strategy, 5(2): 16–21.
10. Manzakoğlu, Bilgen T. & Er, Ö. (2018). Design management capability framework in global value chains: Integrating the functional upgrading theory from OEM to ODM and OBM. The Design Journal, 21(1): 139-161.
11. Rijsdijk, S. A. & Hultink, E. J. (2009). How today's consumers perceive tomorrow's smart products. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 26(1), 24-42.
12. Tukker, A. (2015). Product services for a resource-efficient and circular economy–a review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 97, 76-91. Valencia Cardona, A. M., Mugge, R., Schoormans, J. P., & Schifferstein, H. N. (2013). Characteristics of smart PSSs: Design considerations for value creation. In CADMC 2013: 2nd Cambridge Academic Design Management Conference, Cambridge, UK, 4-5 September 2013.
13. Valencia Cardona, A. M., Mugge, R., Schoormans, J. P., & Schifferstein, H. N. (2014). Challenges in the design of smart product-service systems (PSSs): Experiences from practitioners. In Proceedings of the 19th DMI: Academic Design Management Conference. Design Management in an Era of Disruption, London, UK, September 2-4, 2014. Design Management Institute.