“The Product Development Laboratory”

Two decades designing prototypes and products for the future Mechanical Engineering Department, ETSI Industriales, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)

ABOUT US
The Product Development Lab was founded at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in 1997 by Chair Prof. Pilar Lafont as the first digital design and manufacturing “fab-lab” in our university and the first one to count with a high-performance industrial additive manufacturing laser stereolithography system in Spain. Since then, a group of passionate researchers and teachers from the Mechanical Engineering Department at the ETSI Industriales of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Industriales UPM) work together for reshaping product development and for setting the foundations towards the future of Engineering and Product Design.

Consequently, the UPM’s Product Development Lab is pioneer in our country in the fields of computer-aided design, engineering and manufacturing, as well as in the use of rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing technologies (commonly referred to as 3D printing technologies) for the development of prototypes and final products with complex geometries, high level of detail and using polymeric, ceramic, metallic and composite materials.

We aim:

“To promote the development of innovative products in all kinds of industries by the systematic application of advanced design, engineering and manufacturing technologies and by taking advantage of the use of modern materials”.

“To help enterprises, technological centers and researchers to improve their products by including special functionalities and by design optimization strategies”.

We seek to jointly employ systematic product development methodologies, advanced design and manufacturing technologies and innovative testing procedures for the straight-forward development of advanced products within several industries, including health, energy, transport and space, among others, for the benefit of Society.

In addition, we expect to prepare our students for the future of Engineering, which will for sure benefit from the progressive incorporation of Mechanical Engineering principles to the aforementioned systematic methodologies and from the combined use of multi-disciplinary design/modelling tools and additive manufacturing technologies, towards advanced engineering systems with enhanced performance. Innovative project-based learning methodologies, based on the CDIO (“conceive-design-implement-operate”) approach, are fundamental for the desired shift and allow us to incorporate research results into daily lessons.

Main lines of research, innovation and translation for the Product Development Lab at UPM initiative include:

• Design and development of mechanical systems and engineering products.
• Design and development of biomedical devices and medical technologies.
• Design and development of energy engineering systems.
• Design and development of solutions for transport and space.
• Design and development of micro-electro-mechanical systems.
• Innovative composite and nano-composite materials for advanced industries.
• Knowledge-based design and development of multifunctional / advanced materials.
• Knowledge-based design of complex geometries for improved functionality.
• Surface design and functionalization of materials and products.
• Promotion of Science, Technology & Society approaches.
• Teaching innovation: CDIO in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering.

We collaborate with technological and academic institutions worldwide, as well as with enterprises and foundations devoted to product development in all Engineering areas. We are also promoting collaborative open source co-design strategies for the development of new solutions to face the current and future global challenges.

If you are also passionate about building the future of Engineering and Product Design, please contact and join us.

Contact:
Andrés Díaz Lantada, Associate Professor, Lab’s leader, andres.diaz@upm.es

Address:
Laboratorio de Desarrollo de Productos
ETSI Industriales, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
c/ José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain