Product development ranks among the core processes of a company. The success of a company is closely linked to the success of its products in the market.

The objectives of the master program Product Development is, therefore, to train future employees to meet specific requirements for developing future oriented products:

• this training provides interdisciplinary and intercultural understanding of complex development projects,
• work on the interface between product development and the areas of design, sales, marketing, product management, and quality assurance,
• take up project management, line management tasks and remain aware of the special responsibility of product development,
• carry out independent scientific work and further development on topics of product development,
• create opportunities for self-employment with your own ideas.

When people from different disciplines work together, a successful product can be created. The tasks in product development require a profound interdisciplinary understanding. The study program takes advantage of the outstanding interdisciplinary possibilities at the Pforzheim University and offers important contents in engineering, design, business management and law. An interdisciplinary project is therefore an integral part of the study: You will develop innovative concepts together with students from other departments.

This master's program open to applicants who have successfully completed a first academic degree. It is not only engineers who are interested in the product development process, but also designers who want to deepen their understanding of the development and implementation of products. They too can add relevance to their academic development with our master's program.

The curriculum of the first two semesters consists of four core areas: Methods and tools of the product development; suggestion and implementation of innovations; leading development teams and legal aspects of the product development. Projects are an integral component of the study and establish a connection to praxis. In particular, the interdisciplinary project reflects the working world of a product developer in a team of people from various disciplines. There are no lectures in the third semester. This does not only give you enough time for writing your thesis but also gives you a possibility of doing it abroad.