Matthew Cribb

Abstract
Mattson, C.A., & Winter, A.G. (2016). Why the Developing World Needs Mechanical Design.
ASME. Journal of Mechanical Design, 138(7):070301-070301-3.
doi:10.1115/1.4033549.
Developing communities live in disturbingly different conditions and unjust depravity compared
to life in modern, technology rich western civilization. The clear disparity between poor and rich
peoples have spawned a unique multidisciplinary society within the engineering community
called Engineering for Global Development (EGD) devoted to eliminating this disparity by
providing the developing world with engineering solutions. The engineering research
opportunities for the Journal of Mechanical Design (JMD) are extraordinary and plentiful when
considering the ever persistent lack of access or availability to basic necessities in developing
communities. Many failures to solve development challenges ensues with the lack of knowledge
of the developing worlds socioeconomics and markets. Furthermore, a variety of factors such as
economic, political, and geographical differences have prevented existing solutions from being
implemented. Despite many challenges and barriers, with the right mindset and coordination, the
academic community has the brainpower capable of making the revolution that the developing
world desperately needs. First, engineers skilled in design theory and methodology (DTM) are
most equipped for dissolving the communal barrier that creates misunderstanding. Valued
relationships with developing communities and research of individual cultures are needed.
Second, mechanization is essential to kick-starting a revolution and to create unique machine
designs optimized for challenging environments. If this step is implemented correctly, the
disparity can be eliminated along with many dangerous conditions. Third, engineers in the field
of design optimization are empowered with the skill of finding sources of improvement and
optimizing a mechanical design. Furthermore, this specific group of engineers are perfect
candidates for this research. Finally, uncertainty quantification comes in many qualitative and
quantitative forms within engineering. This skill can be applied to the challenging and central
cross-cultural component of uncertainty. All subdisciplines of mechanical engineering have an
important role to play; these are a pertinent few. There are also more direct contributions that can
be made, each which have an associated impact. First, product development is an open
opportunity with the largest impact. There is a wide variety of needed machines and tools, and
their development are indeed profitable and have great leverage for scalability, and consequently
greater impact. Second, service projects have valuable impact upon communities and creating
meaningful relationships. Also, the engineer involved is personally impacted by the project and
poverty ending products are deployed. Third, service learning has a very great personal impact
upon students; this strengthens future generation impact. Finally, there are boundless application
for science and engineering in developing communities, therefore, endless possibility for
research encouraging the previous three impacting opportunities exists. A few criteria for EGD
research include that research and design innovation papers are clearly EGD contributive and
that transparency be paramount; this is more important than a finished product.
Keywords: Developing Communities, Research, Engineering for Global Development (EGD),
design theory and methodology (DTM), Journal of Mechanical Design (JMD)