Classification of design theories and methodologies for effective industrial applications

Design theories and methodologies (DTM) have been developed extensively for the last three decades. However, the industrial awareness of DTM is very limited according to our investigation of nearly 30 manufacturing firms over a period of ten years. There is a huge gap between academic research and industrial application in DTM. Typical questions arise from practicing designers are: what are DTMs and why and how should they be applied to an industrial design problem? In this paper, we attempt to classify DTMs and develop a mapping between DTMs and design problems. As such, we believe that industrial application of DTMs can be facilitated.