An Extensive and Detailed View of the Application of Design Methods and Methodology in Industry

Abstract

There are many investigations, analyses and evaluations of methodological work in industrial practice. The results of these works are quite similar: Methodological work is not applied in the desirable breadth in practice from the scientists' point of view, even though necessary prerequisites are met. Even though a lot of young engineers with an education in methodology have entered into practice, scientists claim that they see their methods only hesitantly and sporadically applied. In contradiction to these statements we notice quite a lot of well-structured work in industry, like project management in Simultaneous Engineering projects as well as the isolated application of complex methods not covered by conventional methodology. For example, many companies have established a quality gate system and apply methods like FMEA and QFD. The reasons why there seems to be a big gap between the poor application of methodological work in practice and scientists' expectations as to how methodological work should proceed in practice are relatively unknown.