In the field of engineering like many others, foreign competitors are beating U.S. businesses to the punch in terms of bringing new products successfully to the marketplace. How can U.S. engineering companies compete? Simply by turning to this thought-provoking work which answers these and many other questions of successful design products and systems that are market driven and user oriented. Using a comprehensive methodological framework for human-centered design of complex systems, it covers four phases: naturalist, marketing, engineering, sales and service. A wide variety of tools and techniques are discussed within this framework, with illustrated case histories introduced early and developed throughout the chapters. This thorough and consistent framework for design, in combination with numerous ``how to'' tips, provides the reader with a self-contained, applications-oriented plan with which to pursue design concepts.

WILLIAM B. ROUSE, PhD, is Chief Executive Officer of Search Technology, an innovative software company. He has been a professor of systems engineering at both the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois. Dr. Rouse is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and recipient of the Norbert Wiener Award from the Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society. He is the author of the widely read and well regarded Strategies for Innovation: Creating Successful Products, Systems, and Organizations and Design for Success: A Human-Centered Approach to Designing Successful Products and Systems. Dr. Rouse received his doctorate in systems engineering from MIT.