Established in 1998, the Department of Design and Manufacturing – DM (erstwhile Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing – CPDM)) is among the most research and technology-intensive design and manufacturing schools in India, steeped in the ambience of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. IISc is one of the top institutions in the world, and DM is the design and manufacturing face of IISc.
DM is among very few schools in India that train students in developing and making systemically-complex, technologically-intensive, and socially-impactful solutions that are functional, aesthetic, usable and sustainable. It is among the top design schools in the world that specialise in training development of hardware products and manufacturing systems, and has been among the best in research into design, ranking alongside design schools and research centres in Stanford, Delft, Cambridge and CMU.
DM pursues excellence in teaching, research and industry interaction in the areas of design and manufacturing. The two-year professional Masters MDes programme (earlier in Product Design and Engineering, recently changed to Product Design, Development and Management) has been the flagship programme of the Centre for over twenty-five years. From August 2019, DM initiates, along with over twelve partnering departments at IISc, a brand new MTech in Smart Manufacturing, and a research programme (MTech by Research and PhD) in advanced manufacturing.
The department has two active research programmes. One is in advanced design and engineering, spanning the areas of Design Theory and Methodology, PLM, Human Factors in Design, User Interface Design, Vehicle Design, Technology Integration, Sustainability etc., with major applications in Automotive, Aerospace and Biomedical sectors. The other is an interdisciplinary programme in advanced manufacturing, with the following as research areas (see details in the webpage research programmes): new materials and processes, digital manufacturing, manufacturing supply chains, sustainable manufacturing, Industry 4.0, controls, autonomous systems and robotics, and policy and entrepreneurship in manufacturing.
The core competence of DM lies in the successful amalgamation of research into design and manufacturing (MTech by Research and PhD) and training for design and manufacturing in practice (through its MDes and MTech programmes). DM firmly believes that practitioners and researchers are complementary to one another. While practitioners create products and manufacturing systems to improve the society, researchers develop effective methods and tools for supporting practice and education for improved design and manufacturing.
Salient Points About DM
- Pursue excellence in education, research and industrial interaction in design and manufacturing.
- 2-Year M.Des. programme to train students with UG degrees in engineering or architecture to conceptualize and engineer products to satisfy societal needs considering functional, aesthetic, ergonomic, materials, manufacturing, cost, sustainability and marketing aspects.
- 2-year M.Tech. programme to train students with UG degrees in engineering in the areas of smart manufacturing, with exposure to design, materials, processes, digital manufacturing, sensors and mechatronics, AI and analytics, and in operations and supply chains.
- Research programme in product design and engineering (at MTech by Research and PhD levels) – in a variety of research areas, by developing new knowledge as theories, methods or tools for better design and associated engineering.
- Research programme in advanced manufacturing (at MTech by Research and PhD levels) – in a variety of research areas, by developing new knowledge as materials, processes, systems, methods or tools for (better) manufacturing.
Based on QS rankings, since 2017 DM is ranked among the top three Design Schools in India (even when research output is not considered as a criterion for ranking design schools in this ranking).
Based on the number of researchers enlisted in the top 2% most cited researchers in their fields as carried out by the 2021 Stanford study, DM stands as the 1st in Asia, and 9th in the World among design schools.