Product Design Technology

• Engineering Council accredited degree

• A course that combines creativity with practicality to ensure students are able to design innovative yet commercially successful products

• Good hardware support of design process including over 70 Design Workstations, Stratasys and ZCorp rapid prototyping systems, Minolta 3D Scanner, CNC lathes and milling machines.

• Practical sketching, rendering and model making skills in our recently refurbished Design Studio.

• Strong track record of employability in design and engineering companies

• Opportunity to use wide range of software tools for design including Pro/Engineer Wildfire, Alias Studio Tools, ANSYS Finite Element Analysis and CNC machining simulation  

• Institution Engineering and Technologyaccredited degree course (full IEng)

Read Product Design Technology course information (PDF, file size: 308.85KB)

Engineering in the range of today’s successful products, from iPods to supercars, Dyson vacuum cleaners to Airbus A380 is essential in delivering function alongside stylish form. This course introduces engineering concepts and tools as applied to the creation of new products in order to assure the function within the style.

Specialist Product Designers and Design Engineers often collaborate in design teams and there are many opportunities for people who embrace both disciplines. The course develops your creativity in user-centred design alongside an awareness of engineering and manufacturing processes. Ideal candidates for this course will have a design technology background but it is not essential to have taken an art and design foundation course. You need to provide evidence that you are a creative thinker, capable of producing design solutions, with an aptitude for using technology.

Product Design is offered as either BSc(Hons) Product Design Technology or BEng(Hons)/MEng Product Design Engineering. The key difference is the amount of mathematical analysis involved and an increased emphasis on functionality of design in the Engineering version. This is reflected in the entrance requirements for the BEng(Hons)/MEng.

BSc(Hons) Product Design Technology with Management is also available for students who want an increased emphasis on the business and management aspects of the product design and realisation process.

This course is based on a long and successful collaboration between staff from the disciplines of design and engineering. Focusing on harnessing your creativity and readying you for the workplace, this award combines industrial design aspects with engineering and a strong emphasis on Computer Aided Design, engineering and manufacturing CAD/CAE/CAM tools. You will develop your own intellectual and creative abilities to the full, in studio, lab and small group work, model making and the creation of virtual and real prototypes.

What will differentiate the Engineer from the Technologist is that the Engineer will have the ability to innovate and to able to analyse and evaluate designs, from a functional as well as a human and aesthetic perspective.

The award team recommends the optional industrial placement between Levels 2 and 3. This will provide you with additional experience and further enhance your employability as well as providing the context for further studies.

More about the faculty

There are good prospects for the graduates from this course - working as Product Designers or Design Engineers in a wide variety of industries, working in companies or as a consultant. Other opportunities exist in product planning, retail, design management, enterprise creation, research and education.

Graduates with exceptional abilities may continue their studies for a taught postgraduate MSc degree or onto postgraduate research for an MPhil or PhD degree.

• Mechanical Engineering

For more information about Product Design Technology (H771) please contact: