Interdisciplinary engineering design: life without boxes

The author outlines some of the problems (both economic and environmental) that the manufacturing industry will have to face up to in the future. The author then suggests that effective solutions to these problems cannot be developed within the framework of the current division of knowledge. The way forward lies in a world without boxes, something which is definitely not the basis of an easy solution. Based on this belief the author tries to map out a vision of a new engineering design paradigm, and suggest reasons why it will not be easy to achieve a shift in the paradigm