Core77

"You never see an industrial design student taking engineering courses and vice versa. They work shoulder to shoulder in product development [but] with curriculums as they are, they don't collaborate until they've left school... They have contact with each other on the first day of the job." So says Francis DiBella, director of engineering technology at Northeastern, in "A Focus on Use," an excellent essay on how to fix workflow and communication problems between industrial designers and engineers.

"What's usually happening is designers throw the styling and concept over the wall to the engineers and when they see it the first time, they have to work out all kinds of problems," adds Bill Dresselhaus, principal of consulting firm Dresselhausgroup.

The 2,000-word essay isn't just mere bitching; it contains plenty of ideas for solutions. Cynics will be unsurprised to learn that the education- and technology-based suggestions will not be easy to implement, but then, nothing worth doing ever is. Judge the ideas for yourself here, and if you've got better ones, leave us a comment below.

via red orbit and american society of mechanical engineers