Acceptance Barriers Why Are Design Methods Not Accepted
W. Ernst Eder · 2024
Industry and academe has not accepted newer design methods (e.g.Design Science), and does not know about them.The methods that industry accepts (e.g.TQM, QFD, Taguchi, and many more) are claimed as "industry best practice", and industry wants academe to accept these methods as the height of knowledge.An explanation for this delay in accepting "foreign" results (in both directions) is needed.The circumstances are very complex and interacting.Design Science is an ordered, categorized and coordinated set of knowledge about designing (including knowledge about designers) and the objects being designed, a theory.For any use of methods based on Design Science, or any other methods, they must be adapted to problem and situation, to different kinds of product, and the peculiarities of the enterprise.Engineering designers develop their own methods, usually from explanations and practice.Only when an engineering designer meets a novel problem outside his/her immediate experience are any more formal procedures and methods needed.Such methods must usually be known in advance of the need to use them.There is always a general resistance to change from previous familiar ways.It is necessary for future engineering designers to learn methodology during their engineering education.German investigations have demonstrated the beneficial results of teaching formal design methodology.