Basics of Integrated Design Engineering (IDE)

Integrated Design Engineering (IDE) is both the further development and the enhancement of the Magdeburg model of Integrated Product Development (Burchardt, C. (2001). Ein erweitertes Konzept für die Integrierte Produktentwicklung). IDE is a human-centred and multidisciplinary development approach to describe and to develop products of any kind based on multi-criteria requirements from the product target groups, the humans involved in or affected by the life cycle of the product as well as of the phases of the product life. IDE thus integrates stakeholders, products and their lifecycle phases, processes, organisations, knowledge, and information. In IDE, a product is described by both its performance capability and its performance behaviour with different, but equivalent and equally important attributes in a neutral format, which offers significantly more and better ways to describe and to develop a product exactly according to various (and dynamic) requirements. IDE is based on eleven different types of integrations, at first the integration of all humans or parties involved (leading to Human Centricity), then products, processes, departments, knowledge, and methods, respectively. The underlying procedure model offers eleven activities that cover all possible development actions in arbitrary order. Dynamic navigation avoids forcing into a special work organisation and flow, thus supporting any level of flexibility within a development project.