Design Project XL

In the Joint Master Project, students from all three Master's programmes of Industrial Design Engineering (Integrated Product Design, Design for Interaction, Strategic Product Design) work together on a design project. Groups averaging five students work for five months for half of their time on an innovation for a company. The innovation process has three phases.
The first phase focuses on the ‘fuzzy front end’ of product development. During this phase, a thorough analysis is carried out of the company and its environment, resulting in a number of possible strategic directions, of which one will be selected in collaboration with the company. The second phase uses the results from the first phase to develop concepts. In the third phase, the chosen concept is further developed to the level of a prototype or other representation. This phase also includes a marketing plan for the company.
The integration of the three fields of knowledge (marketing, creativity and engineering) combines all relevant aspects of innovation, such as research, thinking out-of-the-box, aesthetics, user-centred design, production, costs and ergonomics.

Facts

The Joint Master Project has been running for more than ten years in collaboration with hundreds of companies. Some of these go on to commercialise or patent the ideas.
The project also imparts educational value to the participating company in the area of product-development methods.
Four to six students work on a project for five months at a company. There will be no competing companies participating in the same period.
Your project can begin in February or in September.
The university allocates two lecturers and a design studio for each project group.

What you can expect

A group of fifth-year students will work on your project for five months, 20 hours a week, at the university.
Each phase of the innovation process will be concluded with a report, including a final report.
The final phase includes producing a prototype or other representation and a marketing plan.
The project provides you with an innovation, a product or a product-service combination.

What we expect from you

You are a manufacturing company with at least 20 employees, in the consumer-product or B2B markets, with some form of user interaction. As a rule, the processing industries, trading companies, design agencies, service-oriented companies, government companies and agencies and non-profit organisations are excluded from participating.
TU Delft will ask an admission fee for participation in the project. This will also give you the right to use the project results. Further details will be laid down in a contract with you before the start of the project.
The minimum involvement of the company mentor is three working days over a period of five months.

Are you interested?

The Joint Master Project is offered twice a year. Your application will be assessed on suitability for this project. The period of participation will be determined by mutual agreement. We would be pleased to provide you with more information on the possibilities to participate in this project.

For more information, please contact one of the course coordinators, or view the contact information of the valorisation team.