A Research Toward the Proposal of a Design Based Manufacturing Industry in the Black Belt Region of the United States

By:
Prof. Tsai Lu Liu
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The Black Belt in Alabama is also called, “Alabama’s Third World”, and the term Black Belt more commonly refers to a region of Alabama where the blacks outnumber the whites. The legacy, the damage, of slavery can most acutely be seen in this region that exhibits some of the worst rural poverty that can be seen in the United States. A research was conducted in 2006 to study the residents and their living conditions in the Black Belt. After the research, a proposal was constructed to identify products that can be produced by the residents in Black Belt in a community center setting with materials germane to that region and marketed to the U.S. and other international markets. Product value will be created by industrial design, human fine-touch, and local materials. The designs will be manufactured in a process that overcomes the workers’ skill constraints and infrastructure problems, like bad roads, of the Black Belt. The study will design a business model that meets the unique challenges of establishing an industrial business in the Black Belt region.


Keywords: Black Belt, Industrial Design, Alabama, Manufacturing Industry
Stream: Human Technologies and Usability
Presentation Type: 30 minute Paper Presentation in English
Paper:

Prof. Tsai Lu Liu

Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial Design, Auburn University
Auburn, Alabama, USA

Tsai Lu Liu graduated in 1985 from the Department of Industrial Design of National Cheng Kung University of Taiwan. After working for a year as a corporate identity designer in Taiwan, he went to Georgia State University and received a MBA degree in Marketing in 1990. Liu went to Auburn University and completed the graduate study of industrial design with a MID degree in 1992. He then worked for three years as a product designer and marketing manager for Design Principles, a product development firm in Huntsville Alabama. In 1995, Liu went back to Taiwan and started working for several manufacturers managing product design and corporate marketing. His teams developed and introduced several new game machines, toy cars, and computer servers to the international market, some of which are still on the market today. In 2002, Liu started his own company designing and producing adaptive products for disabled children. A series of special chairs, tables, and rehabilitation products were marketed to hospitals, schools, and to families with special needs children in both Taiwan and Australia. In 2004, Liu returned to Auburn University as a member of the faculty of industrial design.

Ref: T07P0179