How design service organizations sustain competitiveness in production networks: Case study on industrial design firms

The objective of this paper is to explore how design service organizations sustain competitiveness in production networks. In trends of global sourcing and production networks, manufacturing enterprises outsource more and more activities and become dependent much on their network suppliers. Design service firms play multiple roles in the network, knowledge and network relationship are essential for them to take advantages. The study focus on industrial design firms, a research framework is developed through literature, and a multiple case study was conducted to illustrate and explore the details. It is presented that successful design firms are rich in knowledge in all levels of user, organization and networks, and knowledge in user domain are emphasized. The abilities of integration and collaboration are the key points to maintain and develop design relationship in production networks.