Why You Should Integrate Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering In Early-Stage Product Development

Multidisciplinary Teams Are Key To Innovation

Today’s business world is more complex and ever-changing than ever before. Your team must constantly innovate for your business to succeed and stay ahead of the competition. Simply put, you need to bring together groups of employees with different skills and perspectives to work on new ideas. Multidisciplinary teams are more likely to develop innovative solutions because they can draw on various knowledge and experiences. This diversity allows team members to challenge each other’s assumptions and develop creative new ideas.

It’s no secret that industrial designers and mechanical engineers have their specific fields of expertise. But what happens when those fields of expertise collide and squeeze onto a thin line between industrial design and mechanical engineering? While there are many factors that contribute to innovation, one of the most important is having a multidisciplinary team.

As a design studio that works primarily in the tech startup realm, we believe one of the best and smartest business moves any hardware/tech company can make is integrating Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering early on in the product design process.

Why You Need A Multidisciplinary Team For A Successful Product Launch

The video above goes more in-depth with the following reasons, but here is a breakdown of what is discussed:

1. Reduces Costs: Once you reach the engineering phase of product development, parts and services tend to get costly–especially if you need to change the design. Having design lead the charge ensures fewer revisions and a reduction of costs in the engineering phase.
2. Team Integration: By integrating both Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering, teams can be more efficient by combining resources. You’ll have more people who are thinking about the problem from different perspectives and can offer new insights.
3. Innovation: Innovation is more likely to happen with multidisciplinary teams. In other words, what the engineering may be thinking, design might not think about, and vice versa. Innovation is essential for businesses to grow and thrive. However, it can be difficult to foster an environment that encourages innovation. One way to promote innovation is by forming multidisciplinary teams. This type of team consists of members with different backgrounds and expertise who can collaborate to come up with new ideas and solutions.
4. Cross-pollination: A disconnect between design and engineering teams is not healthy for product development because it can generate un-manufacturable ideas. We believe it is important to have designers who understand engineering and engineers who understand design to bring a product to market successfully.
5. Speed: One of the more obvious reasons to integrate both design and engineering is speed. Specifically for startups, understanding time to market is vital in any product launch.
6. De-risk manufacturing: The sooner you can integrate design and engineering in the front-end, the better it will be in terms of cost savings on the back-end.

Do You Have a Product Idea In Mind?

Industrial design and mechanical engineering often go hand-in-hand in early-stage product development. While designers find ways to integrate everything that makes a brand memorable and embody it into one product, engineers drive the product through execution to make the vision a reality. There lies the stem of many conflicts between the designer and engineer, and Hatch Duo embraces this push-and-pull. Regarding product development, we believe that a healthy balance of both Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering is needed to bring any product to market and create an innovative and sustainable experience.

Do you have any questions for us in terms of integrating our multidisciplinary teams? Comment below!