Networked production and outsourced design. A comparison of three case studies

Abstract

Openness is a common feature in the contemporary design field. It may be found in both production and design processes, and enables the ability to spread information, create networks and connect people, skills or companies. In the last few year many new web platforms have based their business model on crowdsourcing, networking and on collective intelligence, envisioning new relations between the customer, the designer and the production system. Today not all of them are still on the market, and others have taken new directions. This paper presents a comparison of the path of three design companies: Opendesk, Quirky and Formabilio. The first company is still flourishing, the second changed its intent in part and the third closed after three years of activity. All these platforms have some points in common: they are design companies, they produce objects, their work is based on using internet and they create networks.The paper seeks to analyze these similarities, as well as the differences between these companies, by focusing the role of design, the methods of production and distribution, and the degree of openness in each of them.

Key Enablers towards Mature Company-community Collaboration in Open Source Hardware

“…Important steps in the consolidation of the field of OSH have been the founding of progressive lighthouse projects such as Open Source Ecology for a global village construction set in 2003 (Macul, Rozenfeld, 2015) 3 ; Arduino for microcontrollers providing a low-cost OSH prototyping platform (Nayyar, Puri, 2016) 4 and RepRap for DIY 3D printers (Pearce, 2012) 5 , both in 2005. Other notable cases of OSPD projects that have been studied encompass EchOpen ultrasound imaging device (Carpentier, 2021), WikiHouse (Priavolou, Niaros, 2019), Zoybar electronic music instrument (Ilan, 2011), eNable making prosthetic hands (Smith, Mortati, 2017) robot (Mondada et al, 2017), OpenBionics prosthetic hand (Kostakis et al, 2018), Open Desk (Gasparotto, 2017), OSCar (Müller-Seitz, Reger, 2010), and many more. Scientific literature on OSPD projects is nonetheless still quite limited and more case studies are needed in future.…”

Framing Open Design through Theoretical Concepts and Practical Applications: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Open source intelligence referred to collective intelligence of micro-tasking people in such networks, presenting the ability to undertake certain tasks better than a small number of experts (Aitamurto, Holland, & Hussain, 2015). The organizational structure suggested by open source intelligence is similar to crowdsourcing (Gasparotto, 2017;Howard, Achiche, Özkil, & McAloone, 2012;Qin et al, 2016;Zelenika & Pearce, 2014), mass-collaboration (Panchal & Fathianathan, 2008) and mass-participation (Menichinelli, 2016), as they all hint at the potential of collaboration generated by a larger number of people working on various tasks. These terms are compatible with the notion of peer-topeer, which suggested a more lateral, less hierarchical collaboration among selfselecting participants, and, in terms of design process, it suggested a collaborative development of design solutions through sharing of knowledge and resources (Menichinelli, 2016;Ramos, 2017), without putting such an emphasis on large numbers.…”

“…Participatory making (Seravalli, 2012) and participatory prototyping (de Couvreur et al, 2013) both referred to reallife collaboration with people in the act of making. On the other hand, open manufacturing referred to more immanent production techniques enabling the involvement of designers and users through communication platforms (Gasparotto, 2017;Zhou & Tseng, 2013), which suggests a continuation of open innovation practices. Open production as a keyword suggested an in-between approach, relying on customers' ability to self-supply materials and undertake home production and assembly (Basmer et al, 2015).…”

Reconceptualising stakeholders for the management of distributed value creation networks through open design‐led businesses

“…Openly shared design knowledge and open‐to‐participate design processes present potential for democratising innovation through diffuse value creation networks that can diverge into different directions and design outcomes. Many researchers give credit to open design for transitioning towards sustainable futures through facilitating socially, environmentally, and economically beneficial practices by empowering individuals to influence what is produced (e.g., Manzini, 2015), enabling new types of enterprise (Gasparotto, 2017), new ways of manufacturing (e.g. Raasch & Herstatt, 2011) and circular economy practices (e.g.…”

“…The article concludes with a discussion on how this conceptualisation can enable envisioning novel, open design-led business models in terms of collaborative value creation, managing distributed value networks and a layered approach to design and value offerings. influence what is produced (e.g., Manzini, 2015), enabling new types of enterprise (Gasparotto, 2017), new ways of manufacturing (e.g. Raasch & Herstatt, 2011) and circular economy practices (e.g.…”