IPD Trade Show: Efficient & Satisfying Use of Small Living Spaces

Wednesday, December 6 from 6:30 — 8:30 pm
Note: The Stamps Gallery will be closed from 11:00 am — 6:30 pm on December 6 in preparation for this event.

Eight teams of U‑M students — from Art & Design, Business, Engineering, and Information — are competing in this year’s Integrated Product Development challenge. Over the course of the semester, the teams participating in this interdisciplinary course have worked to design and produce an item for the Fall 2017 IPD challenge: Efficient & Satisfying Use of Small Living Spaces.
The student-designed household product must be suitable for use by people living, studying and working in a hyper urbanized environment that enables more efficient and satisfying use of their living spaces; and be profitable at a consumer cost of less than $250.

The annual challenge culminates in the IPD Trade Show, where the teams present and demonstrate their products to the IPD community and public. Attendees can see the actual products, test them out, and cast a vote for the ​“Best of the Best.”

The products will be available to preview online on November 28 by visiting the IPD Trade Show event page.

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Integrated Product Development (IPD) is an experiential, cross-disciplinary course that puts teams of students from Business, Engineering, Art & Design and Information in a competitive product development environment. This innovative course has been featured on CNN and written up in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Businessweek. The course is hosted by the Tauber Institute for Global Operations, and is taught jointly by faculty members from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design.

In this course, each team acts as an independent firm in competition with other teams (firms). The instructors announce a product class and each team must design and build a fully functional product within that class. The product class is broad enough to allow a wide variety of design solutions.

Each team works through the process of market research, concept generation and selection, technical development, production process design, pricing, inventory stocking, and advertising. Teams must design, build, and compete with a real, fully functional, customer-ready product. Teams compete with their products through a web-based ​“trade show” and a physical trade show. Market shares and revenues are computed based on votes from the public.