Design of Industrial Goods

Abstract

Industrial design conveys a message, differentiates the product or makes functionality easier to apply. It is driven by aesthetics and depends strongly on time and culture.

When products are developed by rugby teams, simultaneous engineering, and concurrent engineering or integrated engineering - in place of the traditionally sequential relay-race approach - the importance of industrial design becomes obvious. It is no longer possible to think of industrial designers merely as people, who “wrap products in nice shapes und pretty colours”, as one cynic described their traditional role. Instead, for the development process to be effective, they have to be equal members of the team almost right from the start of the process.

Christopher Lorenz, Management Page Editor, Financial Times

The Economist: Italian fashion: Dropped stitches

A lack of skilled workers could kill one of Italy’s manufacturing successes

© The Economist Newspaper Limited, London (Jun 22nd 2013)

JUNE is when the world’s well-dressed look to Italy’s big fashion shows to learn what to wear. This week the Pitti Immagine menswear show opened in Florence, followed a few days later by its Milanese counterpart, Milano Moda. But do not be fooled by the confident strutting of those hollow-cheeked clothes-horses: although Italian style still draws legions of buyers from the world over, beneath the catwalks the foundations of the country’s flourishing clothing and accessories industries are being undermined.

“Within a generation the ‘Made in Italy’ label may be gone,” frets Ermanno Scervino, a leading designer (one of his latest confections is pictured). Having survived the country’s economic crisis relatively unscathed, Italian fashion, which generates a sizeable trade surplus, is contemplating its own extinction, simply because it is proving so hard to persuade young Italians to join the industry.

Behind the elegant clothing in Mr Scervino’s boutiques in cities like London, Moscow and Tokyo is a range of artisanal skills—pattern-making, cutting, sewing, embroidery, knitting and the like—that turn his ideas into finished items. Hand-stitching dozens of diamond shapes in black chiffon for an evening dress, for example, calls for patience, good eyesight and a manual dexterity that comes only with much practice. Many workers at Mr Scervino’s factory near Florence are well into middle age, and picked up their skills at home or in one of the small dressmaking and shirtmaking businesses that used to be numerous in Italian cities. As these workers head towards retirement it is unclear who will take their place.

What keeps Mr Scervino awake at night also troubles firms making the leather belts, bags and purses for which Florence is famous, and whose production gives work to around 12,000 people in and around the city. Gianfranco Lotti, who makes bags under his own name as well as for a global luxury brand, represents a lost Florentine tradition. Now approaching 70, he learned to make bags completely by hand through an apprenticeship that began when he was 14. Mr Lotti laments the shift from craftsmanship to machinery. Even so, skills are still needed, and the cost of teaching them is beyond the reach of many firms.

“The loss of know-how is dramatic,” says Franco Baccani, the boss of B&G, which makes bags for Gucci, Cartier and other brands. Although it also relies partly on machines nowadays, B&G continues to rely on the human skills needed to select hides, cut and prepare them, and assemble and stitch the parts that make up bags. Shoemakers are in a similar fix. In the Marches region east of Florence, around 60% of the 700 production jobs at Tod’s Group, a big maker of fancy footwear, are highly skilled; but despite offering good pay and conditions, and government-backed apprenticeships for raw recruits, the group is struggling to keep them filled.

With youth unemployment running at 35% in Italy and annual net pay for a young leather-cutter starting at around €18,000 ($24,000), fashion firms ought to have applicants beating down their doors. Like people in other rich countries, Italians tend to look down on manual work, however skilled, and families prefer to push their children towards careers in the professions and the public sector. The education system, at all levels, generally provides a poor preparation for working life. Italian universities are full of youngsters studying subjects in which they are not interested but which their parents think are good, regardless of the job prospects.

Around 86,000 jobs, mostly low-skilled, have been lost in Italy’s textiles and clothing businesses since 2006, and many jobs in shoemaking have also gone, as work has moved to lower-cost countries. This may have given young Italians the impression that there is no longer any secure employment to be had in these industries.

However, the shortage of craftspeople is so widespread that some firms have taken to poaching from competitors, much as football clubs try to lure the best players from rival teams. So those with skills can be sure of finding work and commanding good pay. But the trade associations that represent makers of fashion goods have done a poor job of getting this message across. Only now are some industry bodies, and some of the larger firms, like Tod’s, making an effort to promote careers in the business.

Some firms have looked abroad for skilled sewers and knitters. Mr Scervino has brought in knitwear specialists from Bosnia and Moldova, for example. But these, again, are typically middle-aged workers who will need replacing before long. Other Italian fashion firms have caused controversy by sending some sewing work abroad, bringing the pieces back to add the final stitches before slapping a “Made in Italy” label on them. To the more traditional firms, that risks undermining the label’s cachet. But unless they can persuade more young Italians to come and work for them, it may be the only way to stay in business.