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Transforming design management capability in the manufacturing industry and influencing national design policy in Mainland China

2014 Japan design vsiit
Practice in design management that embraces design operation, as well as organisational and strategic management, and that was well established in, e.g., the UK and Japan, was slower to take root in China. These researchers began in the 2000s the first detailed empirical study of the practice of design management in China. It included around 50 case studies and data from 330 manufacturers. In 2012 they reported their findings, together with a framework for moving Chinese capability forward from a model in which design was confined to the work of the professional designer and towards one in which design management plays a more central role in innovation throughout the business ecosystem.
Jan 2015 proposal to Centre government
This work informed national level design policy in Mainland China and Hong Kong over the succeeding years. Before 2015 there was neither national design policy especially for the manufacturing sector, nor policy promoting design and innovation that embraced the knowledge economy in China. This group was invited in 2013 to join the Strategic Research on Innovation Design project of the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society, funded by the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Its design management framework was used to explore the new role and scope of design in the knowledge economy and to define the scope of innovation design and its development path.

This work was incorporated in 2015 into the Chinese government’s Made in China 2025 ten year strategy for upgrading Chinese manufacturing innovation capability. Further invitations followed for work on drafting policy guidelines on how to implement the design policies in Made in China, later distributed to all manufacturing companies across China, and for contributions to the national strategy around digital creative industries and, in 2017, the guidelines for evaluating the quality of international collaborations, products and stakeholders under the One Belt One Road initiative.

RAE2020 Impact Case 1-01

More specific economic impacts were also achieved through work as part of a drive by the Guangdong government to transform their increasingly unviable high pollution, high waste and low technology furniture industry. Two test cases were selected. In the first, after implementing a new business model which significantly improved production performance and enabled customers to buy direct from the manufacturer, benefiting from rapid delivery of customised products at mass-production prices, a home furniture firm saw its annual sales increase by 400% between 2014 and 2018, reaching RMB 6.6 billion (HK$ 7.3 billion). In the second case, an office furniture systems manufacturer, sales revenue grew 70% from 2014 to 2018. The new business model reduced the traditional construction time from 200 to 67 days, compressing five stages into two. Environmental improvements were also made by adopting a modular approach (standardised units increasing the scope for re-use), and using new materials which eliminated harmful formaldehyde emissions.

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