MSc. Willemen, A.M.

Maurits WIllemen is lecturer at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.

Academic Background

I am an industrial design engineer, both working as a project manager for the industry and teaching at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering in Delft.

Originally educated as a mechanical engineer, I found Industrial Design was more my cup of tea. So, I did the two year post graduate course in Delft and then started working as a product developer.

Since then I have gained experience as an engineer, as a predeveloper and as a project manager, mostly in multinational companies. I worked in teams on ventilation products, lamps and luminaires, toothbrushes, cooktops, ovens, beverage dispensers, refrigerators, medical packaging, beer kegs, medical nutrition and others. Though I specialise in the early development phases (from definition to prototypes that look and work like real products), I also have experience in realisation into mass production and market launch.

I’m a cultural optimist and if there’s real user benefit in a product, I am all for it. I observe in everyday life that user benefit is less and less achieved by physical products and more and more by systems and services. Other things are being designed now.

So, to get in touch with current reality outside industry, I started working as a part-time lecturer in Delft in 2016 (0,3 FTE). I very much enjoy the mix of practice and learning by teaching.

I am married, we live in Utrecht, we have three sons and a daughter.

Education

• 1990 – 1992
  Post graduate program ‘Consumer products’, Delft University of Technology
  Specialisation: application of the ‘depth through movement’ principle, mentored by prof dr Gerda Smets.

• 1983 – 1990
  Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology.

Experience

• 2016 – now
  Part time lecturer, TU Delft.

• 2007 – now
  Self-employed, hired as an innovation project manager.

• 1993 – 2006
  Worked as engineer, consultant and project manager for Philips, Whirlpool Italy,  Heineken a/o. 

Specialisation / field of research

• Innovation practice in large companies
• The front end of development. 

Lectures and/or coaches students on

• Strategic Product Innovation (Bachelor 2^nd year)
• Design Driven Innovation (Bachelor 2^nd year)
• Advanced Embodiment Design (Master)
• Joint Master Project (Master)
• Graduation projects (Master)

Secondary employment

Innovation project manager in industry