4 industrial design trends to expect after the pandemic – Hometown Station | KHTS FM 98.1 & AM 1220 — Santa Clarita Radio

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many industries, some of which have been hit harder than others.

From healthcare to manufacturing to education, many industries have come to a halt and many businesses have not recovered. However, the pause has also allowed industries to consider many of their processes, including design.

The post-pandemic world is becoming quite different from the pre-pandemic world, especially in industrial design. You can expect many trends to continue after the pandemic, including:

Design that promotes personal space

Before the pandemic, it was common to see offices crowded with people, with the only personal space being the three walls and cubic meters of a cubicle.

The same applies to the organization of customers in commercial establishments. However, the pandemic has made social distancing very important because airborne diseases, especially virus-based ones, have proven to be devastating. Therefore, you can expect an industrial design that not only respects but also promotes personal space in the workplace.

It will change the whole dynamic of the workplace and the business. Businesses should ensure that personal space is considered when designing an office or business premises.

More robust digital infrastructure

Before the pandemic, businesses had good digital infrastructure, but it was usually enough to handle office work and a bit more for offsite work. However, the pandemic has shown businesses that they need to improve their infrastructure as many people have to start working from home.

Many companies had to make sure their employees could do the same work at home as they did in the office, which sometimes meant giving them laptops and other hardware for home use.

It also meant that they needed to improve their database access, cybersecurity and other aspects of their digital infrastructure, a trend that appears to be continuing.

Balancing the digital and the natural

Human interaction before the pandemic was very different because there was a lot of free face-to-face interaction.

Most industrial designers before the pandemic were solely focused on digital improvement for efficiency. However, since the pandemic, much of the communication has gone digital, resulting in a spectacular growth in digital communication, which is not as natural as face-to-face communication. Additionally, many industrial aspects of business have gone digital, with self-service stores and the rise of e-commerce being prime examples.

We have lost the balance between the digital and natural aspects of human life, and many are trying to restore it. Post-pandemic industrial designers will need to think about how to balance the digital and the natural.

Encouraging people to get in touch with their humanity won’t be easy, but it is doable.

Planning for longer lead times due to supply chain issues

Another aspect of the industry that the pandemic has severely compromised is the supply chain. Few people tried to improve supply chain efficiency before the pandemic, but the pandemic undid all their efforts.

Supply chain issues have plagued every industry since the pandemic and caused a significant change in the industry. From manufacturers to retailers, industrial designers will need to plan for longer supply chains due to the issues they face.

In construction, the use of construction management software will help address supply chain gaps, and they can try Archdesk solutions.

The same is true for other industries around the world, which will need to use similar mechanisms to account for supply chain shortages and delays. Delivery times will change, so businesses and customers will have to adapt to the changes, which usually means longer lead times.

A lot has changed because of and since the pandemic, especially in the industry. Industrial designers are changing the way things were before the pandemic, and trends are emerging due to these changes. The above trends are only scratching the surface, as many changes in industrial design are bound to continue.