Designing to compete: Lessons from Millennium Product winners

This paper draws upon six case studies of Millennium Product award winners to explore how companies use design to compete in international markets. Small manufacturing companies in the developed world are under increasing pressure to differentiate their products and services as customers are becoming more demanding and markets more international. Our case study organisations have attempted to integrate a wide range of new skills with their traditional competencies in engineering design in order to achieve competitive success. Detailed case studies provide a picture of the migration of capabilities in these small manufacturing companies towards a new types of design activities that span well beyond the traditional activities associated with engineering design.