Pakistan industry should focus on manufacturing components instead of relying on assembling foreign pre-designed goods and this objective could be achieved through introducing concept of teaching design rather than merely teaching commercial software operations.
These observations were made by the speakers in the first meeting of Advisory Committee of National Institute of Design and Analysis, which was also attended by a group of industrialists and directors of various departments of the engineering universities of the country.
The meeting also stressed the need for increasing industry-university linkage in a bid to promote self-reliance in the country. The advisory committee decided that two sub-committees ie one for the infrastructure and the other for curriculum be formed in order to proceed further with the project. The meeting discussed the curriculum and courses, which could promote the concept of teaching 'design' rather than merely teaching commercial software operation.
The participants were of the view that that commercial software should be used as a tool to speed up designing and realisation of the designs into final products or tooling. The committee agreed that Pakistan's industry should move towards product design together with producing the tooling such as dies and moulds, which are used to manufacture the components locally. The participants from the universities assured to provide their full support to NIDA.