In the past, Taiwan focused on OEM (original equipment manufacturing), or custom-made products for others, and now it is moving to ODM (original design manufacturing), where it designs some features for its customers. What is the value of industrial design (ID) and what is its importance for Taiwan's future?
Paul Lo (
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
Christoph Boeninger, DesignAfairs GmbH: Innovation in itself can be positive or negative. Cellphones today have the same computing power as notebooks did a few years ago. We have not just to think about technological innovation, but also service innovation. What kind of services do we have to offer to really drive innovation and really get a larger, broader acceptance of the innovations?
Lin Rong-tai (
How do you find the balance between practicality and design?
David Chen (
We need to keep learning new things, new design trends in the industry. I graduated 10 years ago and what I studied then is very different from what is needed now. With the design team, we create a concept. By using 3D modeling and verification, the innovations converge into the best proposal. The join between the front-end understanding to the back-end realization is very important, and what we need to capture and control is user-centered -- that is the most important.
Lo: Our customers represent the consumers at large as we are an ODM company and do not face end-users directly. We have to think about cost. This cannot be achieved by a single person -- it must be done by the whole team.
Boeninger: Design is very important. Look at luxury cars like Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, etc. The head of design is always part of the executive board. There is a chief executive officer and a chief financial officer, but also a chief design officer, or CDO. That shows how important design is for the success of the company and the product. If you ask a customer in Europe why they buy a cellphone, 80 percent will say they like the design. Siemens sell US$10 billion in phones per year.
Eighty percent of that is US$8 billion. If US$8 billion is directly linked to good design or bad design, then you see how much responsibility the designers have.
One brand -- Ericsson -- fell out of the race due to bad design. There was a Financial Times article about one year ago that read "Ericsson lost US$1.5 billion due to bad design."
What are the major differences between design in Taiwan, and design in other parts of Asia, the US and Europe?
Chen: In Europe and the US they emphasize OBM as they have their own brands. They place the emphasis on front-end design, such as reasonable, accurate designing, then the development of the product.
They have to analyze the market and do market research and lifestyle studies. This is the major difference between the local market and overseas. The local manufacturer usually has to match the OEM/ODM timeframe. Designing a cellphone in Taiwan from design to mechanical structure, including prototyping, is carried out in a month and a half to two months, whereas to develop a new product it takes a lot of time and a lot of front-end work. This is what we have to improve in Taiwan.
Elton Fang (
Boeninger: It seems to me the design culture in Taiwan is traditionally very much linked to research and development [R&D] as you come from an OEM background. In comparison in the United States, you have a very strong link to marketing. Ideally the designer should be linked neither to R&D nor marketing, but should be a mediator between both, plus bring in bits of their own design aesthetics etc.
What can the Taiwan government do to upgrade the nation's industry in terms of ID?
Lo: For an ODM industry like us, we hope government policy has some benefit for us. We hope to implement ID in our mainstream work daily. Take for example the new second terminal at the CKS International Airport. [The government has] spent a lot of money on that, but the general feeling is that it is wrong, compared to Hong Kong and Singapore where they spent a lot more money. When the government works on infrastructure we should not only consider price but also ID as part of the bid. Then everybody will pay more attention to ID.
Boeninger: After the Second World War, the German people realized they had no resources. They realized that they had to add value to their products, they had to add design, which is one of the most effective values possible.
They founded design centers in the various regions of Germany, and their task was to promote the idea and power of design and also to gather designers together and lead them into design projects. Today these design centers still exist, but they get very little money from government.
They organize competitions like the iF Award and the Red Dot Award to finance themselves. Design is such a crucial part of any new development that the industry should be aware of the power and potential and we don't need the design centers any more. If an entrepreneur doesn't see that, then he should go bankrupt.
How can we nurture design talent in Taiwan and create our own design superstars?
Lin: Lite-On's [third annual innovative design] award this year attracted 900 entries, which shows there is no shortage of design talent. We have one of the most diversified ID environments in the world with students from Taiwan, Japan, Europe, the US. We have incubated a very good environment in ID. Design is a gift or a talent. You can't really produce a superstar -- sometimes it just happens. From the academic sector, we can teach students methodology so they have real innovative competence. The government should also nurture innovation. And industry should provide opportunities for designers by planning to design innovative products.
Chen: In the last decade, especially the last two or three years as Taiwan has moved from OEM to ODM and now OBM, we have started to have a platform for designers. Each year the number of ID department graduates is increasing, but the percentage going into ID as their core business is rather low. I think the problem with Taiwan's education system is how we pass examinations and gain diplomas. We're talking about the curriculum and method of training. A good designer is a mindset.
An industrial designer is different from an engineer. Many people get into the ID field by accident. Schools should understand the needs of industry, just as industry should understand the needs of the market.
We need to nurture people who can actively think and ambitiously and effectively resolve problems, only then can we nurture a real superstar for our industry.
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