Design and Production Engineering&Mechatronics, Automation and Smart Materials

In an industrial setting, understanding of the processes associated with developing new products for launch into markets can oft en be segmented.  As a consequence, the education of new designers and innovators who can develop new product and service interventions to meet society’s challenges in the 21st century is a complex task.  In many cases, programmes are successful in educating students in one or several aspects of the product development chain but not across the entire cycle. Design itself lies at the intersection of technology, art and science. DIT’s Product Design B.Sc. (Hons) programme was developed to refl ect this reality and has continually evolved since its launch into a successful model for cross disciplinary undergraduate education. Th e programme was uniquely designed to operate across three distinct Colleges (Engineering, Creative Arts and Business) within Dublin Institute of Technology.  Its key objective is to give students a fi rm grounding in these three areas and to produce graduates capable of understanding and executing all stages of the design process with a distinct focus on producing products and interventions which are technically feasible, consumer appropriate and commercially credible. While still a relatively new programme, it has continued to innovate in both structure and pedagogy to ensure a clear focus on the needs of society and of industry. Projects have been developed which aim at inspiring students to work more closely with the design and manufacturing industries. 2017 will see the tenth year of graduates emerge from DIT’s Product Design programme and in this time, students of the programme have repeatedly won awards in a wide variety of design areas including creative, technical and business innovation, while graduates have gone on to successful careers in a number of fi elds and industry sectors. Th e authors believe that the model employed in this programme could be fruitfully applied to the development of cross-disciplinary programmes in a variety of levels and sectors.