INTERNATIONAL MULTIDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIVE PROJECT FOR DESIGN OF CONCEPTUAL PRODUCTS

Nowadays, the design and development process of complex systems at an industrial level demands multidisciplinary work in order to improve product quality. Additionally, globalization of industries and product development requires well-organized synchronous/asynchronous and co-located/remote work practices in order to allow international cooperation to be successful. Within the university context students are generally trained to work in groups, however, they often develop their academic projects with classmates of the same curricular program and the real industrial work situation is new for them. To make this experience more realistic, EAFIT University in Colombia and Coventry University in the United Kingdom have joined to set-up and develop an international collaborative project course oriented to the design and development of innovative transport oriented products. Two different disciplines have been paired, the engineering approach from Colombia and the industrial design competencies from the UK, to enhance better product design by combining both points of view. In this opportunity, a real industrial need was used to reinforce the real life constraints in order to expose students to a realistic engineering and design approach. This industrial need was treated as a case study, being oriented to design and development of a concept for a food vending-truck to be used in public events. The collaborative experience was strengthened with the co-location of all students after the UK participants travelled to one of the countries (Colombia) for the final part of the project to present the final concept to the participating company. Results are analyzed in this article showing a good international cooperation scenario that enhanced the competitive level of students involved, as well as offering practical and creative solutions to local industry.