Abstract
Roles in the Design Process: A Survey of Engineering and Industrial Design EducatorsIn industry, engineers are often called on to work closely with designers. Very few academicprograms, however, incorporate collaborations between these two fields. This paper looks at theviews of educators from mechanical engineering and industrial (product) design. A survey, takenby 55 professors, covered topics such as curriculum, creativity and working relationshipsbetween the two fields. From the results of this survey, it was found that professors from bothdisciplines feel that mechanical engineers and industrial (product) designers would benefit froma better understanding of one another, which could lead to more respectful and healthy workingenvironment.Additionally, one-on-one interviews were conducted with faculty from both fields. Theseinterviews focused on how these faculty members viewed the topic of design and what theirthoughts on interaction with the other discipline were. From the interviews it was realized thatthe thought of interaction between the two disciplines was welcomed and encouraged, but it wasfeared that it could take away from the core curriculum of the individual programs. In this paperwe will present results from both the survey and the interviews, and the implications that theseresults have for engineering design education.