Design in new industrial contexts: shifting design paradigms and methodologies

The output of industrial process is becoming more and more complex as a result of saturation of markets and the fine segmentation of the demand, which follows the multiplication of needs, lifestyles and behaviours. Services addressing such needs, are replacing material products as an object of exchange in modern markets. This context is addressing industrial production towards new models, characterised by highly personalised and localised solutions, to be developed by a network of actors, rather than a single company. New solution oriented partnerships (SOP) need to be created, involving companies, institutions and users (Jegou 2004). Design should play a critical role in such solutions, as it should be the main driver for innovation, while, at the same time, it should suggest interesting scenarios, which will be the glue of the partnership. Despite their small scale, such individualised and localised solutions should be expressed according to an industrial logic. The cooperation, within the production system of companies, local actors and even users may address this problem, however the industrialisation of such solutions is a methodological approach that has not yet generated an appropriate operative paradigm to address concrete design solutions. This paper focuses on the development of such and operative paradigm, which should include methods and tools to develop innovative product service systems (PSS) for the new industrial context.