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Over the past decade, with greater emphasis being placed upon shorter lead times, better quality products, reduced product costs, and greater customer satisfaction, the topic of Engineering Design has received increased interest from the industrial and ac ademic communities. Considerable effort has been directed at developing design process methodologies and building computer tools that focus upon relatively narrow aspects of design, but many key problems in Engineering Design research and practice remain unanswered. Resulting from the First International Engineering Design Debate held in Glasgow, UK in late 1996, this volume discusses the main issues concerning the improvement of design productivity. Covering design studies, design development, concurrent engineering and design knowledge and information, it attempts to derive a common understanding of the basic factors, problems and potential solutions involved.

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Design Productivity.- Design Productivity.- I: Design Studies.- Investigating Productivity in Engineering Design: A Theoretical and Empirical Perspective.- Negotiating Bight Along: An Extended Case Study of the Social Activity of Engineering Design.- Influences on Design Productivity-Empirical Investigations of Group Design Processes in Industry.- Computer Supported Co-operative Product Development Using a Process-Based Approach.- Competitive Industrial Product Development Needs Multi- disciplinary Knowledge Acquisition.- II: Design Development.- A Socio-Technical System for the Support of the Management and Control of Engineering Design Projects.- The Design Co-ordination Framework: Key Elements for Effective Product Development.- III: Concurrent Engineering.- Concurrent Engineering: A Successful Example for Engineering Design Research.- Understanding the Concurrent Engineering Implementation Process-A Study Using Focus Groups.- Architecture to Handle Concurrent Engineering.- IV: Design Knowledge and Information.- Design Information Issues in New Product Development.- Improving Design Management in the Building Industry.- Design as Building and Reusing Artifact Theories: Understanding and Supporting Growth of Design Knowledge.- EDD ?96 Programme Committee.

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