Industrial Design, Creativity and Ideation: A Study on Product Development in the Manufacturing Industry in the BioBio Región, Chile

Abstract

Creativity and ideation through industrial design, applied in productive contexts, can be a key for regional businesses to achieve differentiation and competitiveness in today’s globalized markets. The Biobio region of Chile is characterized as a manufacturing pole that has historically been oriented to production and assembly, where the level of incorporation of creativity and ideation through industrial design in the development of new products are unknown. To this end, a diagnostic survey of 163 manufacturing companies was carried out. Results indicate that in this regional context creativity and ideation through industrial design are present in the development of production, but such presence is reactive, in response to external customers requirements and, sometimes, those of users. Although the value of differentiation is recognized when designing a new product, the low association of the design process to a formal discipline within the organization leads to a scarce innovative culture and the creative processes attempt to deliver fast and useful answers but fail to be innovative.