2. The challenge: matching knowledge to the issues at hand

Over the last ten years or so, significant new factors have changed the context in which product design has traditionally evolved, and to which it is still adapting. One of the aims of the articles in the "Design - Production" section is to respond to these new issues by making available to a wider audience the knowledge available to help answer them.

In a nutshell, we're talking about globalization, and we're seeing its effects on the provenance of products as well as their destinations; new technologies making products "Tech", information technologies associating with product-user operation, ecology and risk prevention, all of which fit more or less into a system of trade and consumer regulations and laws.

In addition to legal problems, companies that have placed products on the market with negative consequences for humans, society or...