 esign is increasingly important as a means of differentiating and adding value to products. At the same time, speed to market depends on the ability to integrate design into the production process. Yet many SMEs - including new technology-based firms (NTBFs) in particular - lack specialised design management skills, and frequently pay insufficient attention to these issues. "The car industry, and large companies like Philips and Braun, already manage and measure the impact of design as an innovative tool," explains João Mena de Matos of the European Design Centre (EDC) in Eindhoven, in the Netherlands. "For SMEs, the management of creativity and design is at the same stage as the use of CAD/CAM technologies was a decade ago. They are only now beginning to appreciate the commercial value of such methods."
Of course, firms which undervalue effective design management are unlikely to seek the assistance of a design centre. The recently launched Made-It project(1) aims to develop and test new promotional and service-packaging strategies for design centres, in order to open a channel through which much-needed design skills can reach Europe's high-tech SMEs. The project goes beyond the transfer of technology to the broader transfer of knowledge.
An excellent IDEA
EDC and its partners in Spain and Germany will establish a permanent European network of design centres based on a core group drawn from a total of seven Member States. Others working with SMEs in the field of design will be able to join at a later stage. Each pursues a different sectoral strategy in relation to a different national business community. At the same time, they all face similar challenges in helping their SME clients. The potential for exchanging methods and approaches, and for the joint development of new advice services which can be customised to meet the needs of individual SMEs, is enormous.
As a first step, the two-year project will identify and consolidate existing good practice in the delivery of design-management services to SMEs. This will provide the basis for a set of SME-friendly, web-based multimedia resources, which are to be pilot-tested by around 500 SMEs. The partners plan a straightforward self-evaluation tool to highlight the ways in which design management can improve competitiveness by saving time and costs. The website will also provide a central point through which SMEs can access other design management resources.
Examples of the successful application of good design management are essential. "Most manufacturers focus on incremental improvement. But there are already some wonderful examples of design solutions which completely revolutionise the manufacturing process," says Mena de Matos. The project will also launch an annual Innovative Design European Award (IDEA) to promote design management as an aid to innovation. "As far as we know, this will be the first prize to reward not only excellence in design, but excellence in the business processes which produce it," he says.
|
Evaluation of a design concept at the European Design Centre, using computer supported collaborative working (CSCW) technology. |
Rising to the challenge
The It Takes 2 project(2) addresses the problems - both technical and non-technical - which prevent the use of the best available technologies in the refurbishment of post-war residential 'tower' blocks.
Innovation is particularly complex and difficult to manage in this context. "The project will create a channel through which the latest technological solutions can reach the most deprived urban environments, and in ways which respect the needs and aspirations of those who live and work on these estates."
It Takes 2 focuses on five very different high-rise housing estates in the cities of Antwerp, Dublin, Gothenburg, Leipzig and Erculano in southern Italy. It will develop a structured process for the participatory planning of urban regeneration projects by technology experts, politicians, residents, housing managers and local businesses.
"Right across Europe there are many, many high-rise estates now badly in need of upgrading," says the project manager, Tjeerd Deelstra of the International Institute for the Urban Environment (IIUE) in the Netherlands. There are also many new resource-saving technologies which in theory could be applied to reduce running costs and improve living conditions. But it is difficult and expensive to retrofit rainwater storage tanks, heat pumps and co-generation systems to existing buildings.
More for less
"The technical challenge is to integrate these technologies, combining different measures in the same refurbishment project so as to achieve better results for the same investment," Deelstra explains. "But there are also formidable non-technical problems. First, integration involves technologies which are normally the responsibility of different municipal authorities or departments. We must convince managers that the additional cost-savings make collaboration worthwhile. Second, the solutions proposed by technical experts also need to be acceptable to the owners and users of the buildings. For example, we must find satisfactory ways of sharing the costs and the savings between residents, housing associations and local authorities."
Making use of a number of already proven planning methods, the project will trace the complete urban regeneration trajectory from expert assessment, through vision development and action planning workshops, to implementation. Only one small pilot action will be carried out in each city during the project itself, but the partners expect to apply the participatory approach more widely after it is completed.
Deelstra also anticipates keen interest from other cities, especially in the accession countries of central and eastern Europe. Towards the end of the project, the It Takes 2 approach will be disseminated through an advanced study course for up to 40 city housing managers, and will also be published on CD-ROM and on the web as a toolkit.
(1) IPS-1999-00032 - Management of design in Europe using innovative tools
(2) IPS-1999-00022 - Partnerships for societal and technological innovation in post-war high-rise areas.
Contacts
| 
INNOVATION'S SPREADING RIPPLES
