Information Technology

Abstract

This document summarizes the outcome of an Expert Meeting held jointly between the Science and Engineering Research Council and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which brought together a multi-disciplinary group of experts from the information technology (IT) and product design communities. The meeting was held to review the state of the art of IT in design, to identify the technology gaps and development problems, to inform each community of the views and developments being undertaken by the other and to help identify the way forward in the British R&D effort to stimulate innovative product design. One of the important outcomes of the meeting was the identification of priorities for research and development in the application of IT in the design process which will be necessary if the United Kingdom is to remain competitive in design for manufacturing industry. The meeting was attended by a distinguished group of industrialists and academics drawn from the United Kingdom and overseas. In terms of priorities, the findings of the meeting were: 1. There should be a co-ordinated programme to determine the way in which designers carry out design when supported by computer-based tools. 2. There should be support for further research through demonstrator projects which help to provide the scientific understanding required in the construction of the next generation of design tools. 3. Forward-looking projects should be defined with, say, a ten year time horizon to develop prototypes of the design tools of the future.