DESIGN THEORY DEVELOPMENT IN WORLD HISTORY

Albert Einstein once said, “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination
encircles the world.” Nowhere is this statement truer than in the field of product
development. Product development requires an imagination for new technology, for
novel solutions to both common and extra ordinary problems, and for unique processes
to improve people’s lives.

There is a rich literature on mechanical product design. To understand where these

methods and thoughts arose, it is instructive to reflect on the history of mechanical design
theory, from its very inception at the start of recorded history to the current state of
development.

Major 50 design theory developments in world history. One main observation is that the
design theory is not yet a mature field; new developments are constantly being
undertaken. This insight is further understood from the plot below.

Design Theory developments over time

100
Design Development

10

1
-3000 -2000 -1000 0 1000 2000 3000
Year

Two discernible trends can be observed. One is the rich development that occurred up
through the time of the Roman Empire, with a plateau around the first millennium. Then
another rapid profusion of design theory development began about the time of the 1700’s,
which has not let up to this day.

The first development period can be explained as the developments in design theory
required of classic civilization, which ended with the fall of Roman Empire. Since
craftsmen and architects were the designers of the age, they relied on the handed-down
knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome for their understanding. Medieval civilization
was, from a design theory point of view, no more complex than ancient civilization.
Technology had not advanced, so there was no demand for further developments in
design theory. Grossly, simplifying, medieval civilization could develop all required
devices with the handed-down theories of ancient civilization.

It wasn’t until after the Middle Ages that this trend changed; technology advanced and
the need arose for better design theories. New production systems, new labor saving
technology, new understanding of the physical world, new mathematics-all of these
advancements required more than a simple build-and-test design methodology.

It can be seen from the history that the first theories on the design of mechanical devices
were basically kinematic. It is only recently that more modern thoughts are being applied
from other fields such as separating function and form when designing a complex
mechanical system, applying complex algorithms to routine synthesis tasks and
considering the value that a feature will bring to a device concept.