Engineering design for sustained development in less industrialized economies

This research examines the role of product design in less industrialized economies (LIEs) with the perspective that improved product design can result in meeting the needs of a larger portion of the world's population, thus spurring sustained economic growth and human development.; To provide background, an investigation of how engineering design in LIEs differs from the practice in more industrialized economies was undertaken. It was found that designers in LIEs have unique opportunities, but face confounding constraints related to the lack of resources and capital, high corruption, poor infrastructure, demographics and available education. Data were analyzed from Kenyan manufacturers of common-use household items to determine the central modes of product design. It was concluded that most products are attempted reproductions or adapted imitations of foreign-designed products; minimal original product design was observed. It was concluded from this investigation, that to promote sustained product design that better meets the needs of its consumer in LIEs, manufacturing capacity must first be addressed.; The Baseline Study was undertaken in Kenya of 78 formal sector metalworkers at four firms to provide LIE manufacturing data on skill acquisition, manufacturing obstacles, workers' extracurricular jobs and the success of previous capacity-improving attempts. A significant formal-informal sector overlap and inter-sector transfers were observed. These phenomena coupled with documented LIE social mechanisms suggest that manufacturing capacity can be strengthened throughout an industry with minimal outside intervention by introducing broadly useful manufacturing techniques to a small number of firms in the formal sector. This is the foundation of the auto-propagation theory.; In the Field Experiment, manufacturing techniques designed for local formal and informal sector metalworking conditions were introduced to workers at two metalworking firms in Nairobi. Changes in manufacturing capacity were measured at the level of individual, firm and industry with comparisons made to a third firm which had not been introduced to the techniques. Improved capacity at all levels by the sample firms suggests validity of the auto-propagation theory. Two predictive models were also evaluated as to their ability to estimate the likelihood of a specific manufacturing technique being transferred and the likelihood of an individual transferring a technique.