Open design platforms for open source product development: current state and requirements

The spread of ICT and cheap low-size production tools like 3D-printers led to the development of open design, i.e. community-based and open source development of physical products. This innovative organization of product development offers a great opportunity for continuous improvement of products as well as formidable a potential for product innovation and incubation of new businesses. However, because of a limited availability of supporting methods and tools, open design projects are still unable to compete with today’s standards of industrial product design. The present article aims at providing a state of the art of existing online tools for open source product development and discusses their limitation regarding the challenges raised by what is identified as an emerging design paradigm. This is performed through the definition of an analysis grid through which existing tools have been scanned as well as a case study. It claims for further empirical research in order to describe the phenomenon from a design science perspective, to define appropriate categories and develop new specific online product data management tools.