'Innovate or die' has been a recurrent reality for many Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as manufacturing processes move offshore, consumer markets shift, and technological advancements grow at exceedingly fast rates. This causes major issues for the manufacturing sector through the loss of skills and equipment that are discarded when manufacturers lose their principal markets. This creates an opportunity to use design as a strategy for business agility; by taking a socio-economic crisis and turning it into an opportunity to diversify production output. This presentation showcases 10 industry funded research projects in 10 years; highlighting how research was used to audit organisational capability to translate good ideas into tangible assets for organisational growth. A roadmap to facilitate collaboration between SMEs and researchers is provided, and subsequently shows the barriers and promoters of successful industry-engaged research. This provides the foundation for a mutual understanding of the design process and facilitates shared decision making to such that SMEs can be more resilient, adaptable, and agile to turbulent times by using research-led practice as a driver of innovation.
Speaker
Professor Blair Kuys is currently the Associate Dean Research in the School of Design and Architecture at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. He is an active researcher who is instrumental in embedding industrial design research, theories and practice in traditional manufacturing fields to sustain and grow productivity. He has been awarded over AU$8M of research income, has 22 products go to market, and won three consecutive Good Design Awards for his products with Atlite Skylights (2018, 2019 and 2020). He is also the recipient of seven Vice-Chancellor's Awards which is the highest accolade at Swinburne University of Technology.
This is an in-person event being held in the Green Brain, Storey Hall, Building 16, Level 7, RMIT City Campus.
Order of proceedings
- 4:30pm keynote address
- 5:30pm networking reception and refreshments.
The presentation is part of RMIT University's Social Change Symposium, presented in collaboration with the College of Design and Social Context and the Social Change Enabling Impact Platform.
