1. Introduction
The discipline “Design Engineering” includes two different areas. The one is the new trend technology which bases on rapid development of computer aided technologies such as CAD, CAM or CAE. The other is the traditional design technologies based on the conventional knowledges and know-haws piled up by great forerunners. The range of this dicipline thus spans very wide area, from specialistic engineering fields such as mechanical engineering, electronics and architectonics, to newly developed fields such as system engineering, industrial engineering, reliability engineering, safety engineering and human engineering. The application of design engineering also covers various fields like mechanical design, architectural design, interior design, computer graphics, arts, technical drawing standards, CAD and so on.
Many technical high schools, technical junior colleges, senior colleges, universities and industrial companies has taken account of design engineering and technical drawing, which is highly related to design engineering. Those various academics and industries have influenced on the activities of JSDE. This variety of the related fields and organizations is one of the most important merit and characteristic of our society, JSDE.
JSDE will keep providing a lot of programs of information exchanges and human communications that are related to design engineering, for the public, in order to contribute to the improvement of related academic studies and technologies, and also to show our presence as a significant information center of design engineering.
We would like to address our activities to people those whom are related to or interested in design engineering, to get kind understandings. It is the most significant mission of JSDE to have many memberships and achieve a great progress together.
We are sincerely welcome you to join our membership.
2. Greeting from JSDE president
In 2026, the Japan Society for Design Engineering (JSDE) celebrated the 60th anniversary of its founding on May 14, 1966, as the Japan Society for Research of Design and Drafting. With the two years surrounding this anniversary designated as a commemorative period, we kicked off the celebrations by hosting the 6th International Conference on Design Engineering and Science (ICDES) in Alexandria, Egypt, in August 2025. Subsequently, on May 23 and 24, 2026, we held a grand 60th Anniversary Commemorative Ceremony at the Global Front, Meiji University. The Society’s activities leading up to this milestone are the result of the dedicated efforts of previous presidents, vice presidents and board members who have managed the Society, as well as our past and present members and supporting members, to whom we express our deepest gratitude.
The unifying theme for this commemorative ceremony and related events was defined as “Design Engineering 6.0 (Design Engineering that evolves together through the fusion of humans, nature, society, and AI).” “Design Engineering 6.0” was defined based on the following stages: 1.0: The Era of Experience and Intuition (until 1939); 2.0: The Beginning of System Engineering Applications (1940–1959); 3.0: The Beginning of Design Methodology (1960–1979); 4.0: The Beginning of Computer-Aided Design and Automation (1980–1999); 5.0: The dawn of digital intelligence (2000–2019), and 6.0: The dawn of co-creation, sustainability, and future adaptability (2020–). We then claim that JSDE will take the lead in building a system of design engineering in which humans, AI, nature, and society converge and co-evolve toward sustainable design that addresses societal challenges.
Reflecting on JSDE’s journey within the history of design engineering, we were deeply impressed—during the 60th Anniversary Design Forum titled “60 Years of CAD and Related Technologies: Past and Future,” held on May 23 as part of the commemorative events—to see that the history of CAD’s evolution, a crucial tool for design, largely coincides with JSDE’s 60-year history. Furthermore, during the commemorative keynote lecture and panel discussion on “Design and AI” held prior to the anniversary ceremony, we engaged in an excellent discussion regarding the appropriate use of AI for the design as the noble and creative work of designers. We believe that “Design Engineering 6.0” should be a core in “Monotsukuri” that seeks human well-being by effectively utilizing the computer technologies.
JSDE has always operated and will operate as the key academic society spearheading “Design Engineering 6.0.” JSDE asks all members to utilize JSDE as a platform for disseminating and sharing information, and kindly request your continued support and cooperation to advance “Design Engineering 6.0.”
June 2026
Nobuyuki Iwatsuki
President, Japan Society for Design Engineering
(Special Appointed Professor, Research Department,
National Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality Enhancement of Higher Education)
3. The history of JSDE
Our society was founded as Japan Society for Research of Design and Drafting at May 14, 1966. At that time, the word ‘design’ was directly recognized so as to be realized through technical drawing. The name of the society was given after such philosophy that strongly connects design and drafting. The number of original members was 440. Eighty percent of them were affiliated with educational organizations. Since the founding, publishing of journals and holding of annual conferences have been maintained as primary activities.
In 1970, the society was renamed Japan Society of Design and Drafting and was accredited as corporate aggregate by Minister of Education at April 1st, 1978. The worldwide engineering trend began to aim at intelligent technologies. In this trend, the meaning of design was also changed to effective application of newly developed technologies onto commercial products, however, the most practical representation of design was still drafting. The organization structure of the new academic society was established based on that philosophy. At January 23 in year of 1989, the society was again renamed Japan Society for Design Engineering, to clearly represent our mission and necessity of wider concept of design including drafting. Our journal title was also changed from ‘Design and Drafting’ to ‘Design Engineering’.
Since the founding, eight branches have been established in nationwide. The number of membership also has been increasing. In 1997, we had 1,300 of memberships, 60% from educationist and 40% from companies. In the year of 2006, JSDE celebrated 40th anniversary by holding International Conference on Design Engineering and Science (ICDES2005) at Vienna, Austria from October 28 to 31. The title of the conference included the word ‘Science’ to reflect our wish that the understanding for the difference of production approach and design philosophy behind design drawings would be deepened under the prediction of today’s internationally united and borderless world. This international conference has been held regularly in Tokyo in 2010, Pilsen, Czech Republic in 2013, Aachen, Germany in 2017, and Kitakyushu, Japan in 2020, expanding the opportunities for global exchange.
In 2011, JSDE was recognized as a public interest incorporated association, and in 2016, the 50th anniversary of the society’s founding was celebrated and has made further progress in our development.
Recent researches of design engineering has widely been extended in cooperative design, optimizing design, universal design, satisfying design, energy saving design, reverse engineering, concurrent engineering, CAD, CAE, CAM and so on. Such variety of research topics significantly represents the profundity of design engineering. We wish you to utilize our society as effective place of communication and information transmission on design engineering.
JSDE chronological table
| 1966 | May 14th | Japan Study Group of Design and Drafting was founded. Dr. Takeo Yoshizawa was elected as first president. Journal ‘Design and Drafting’ was published 4 times per year. |
| 1967 | Jan 15th | Hokkaido branch was established. |
| 1968 | May 25th | Kyushu branch was established. |
| Nov 23rd | Kansai branch was established. | |
| 1969 | Apr 19th | Tokai branch was established. |
| 1970 | Apr 1st | The society was renamed Japan Society for Design and Drafting. |
| 1971 | Journal ‘Design and Drafting’ was published 6 times per year. | |
| 1974 | Jun 14th | Chugoku branch was established. Triarchy system for vice president was initiated. |
| 1975 | May 17th | Tohoku branch was established. |
| Jul 21st | Shikoku branch was established. | |
| 1976 | Apr 17th | Hokuriku branch was established. |
| 1978 | Apr 1st | Accredited as corporate aggregate. |
| 1979 | Journal ‘Design and Drafting’ was published 9 times per year. | |
| 1982 | Honor membership system was initiated. Journal ‘Design and Drafting’ was published 10 times per year. | |
| 1983 | Journal ‘Design and Drafting’ Vol.18, No.100 was issued. | |
| 1986 | May 24th | 20th anniversary event was held at Keio University. Journal ‘Design and Drafting’ was published 12 times per year. |
| 1989 | Jan 23rd | The society was renamed Japane Society for Design Engineering Journal was also renamed ‘Design Engineering’ |
| 1996 | 30th anniversary year | |
| 1998 | JSDE web site was opened. | |
| 2005 | 40th anniversary event, International Conference on Design Engineering and Science (ICDES2005) was held at Vienna, Austria. | |
| 2006 | 40th anniversary journal Vol.40, No.12 was issued. | |
| 2009 | Sep | JSDE web site was renewed. |
| 2010 | Nov | International Conference on Design Engineering and Science (ICDES2010) was held at Tokyo, Japan. |
| 2011 | Apr 1st | The organization of JSDE was modified to public interest incorporated association. |
| 2014 | Sep | International Conference on Design Engineering and Science（ICDES2014) is held at Pilsen, Czech Republic |
| 2016 | 50th anniversary of foundation | |
| 2017 | Sep | International Conference on Design Engineering and Science（ICDES2017) is held at Aachen, Germany |
| 2020 | Nov | International Conference on Design Engineering and Science（ICDES2020) is held Online |
4. Benefits of JSDE Membership
Monthly journal “Design Engineering”
JSDE monthly journal “Design Engineering”, completed with not only latest academic papers about outcomes of researches, developments and education activities, but also dissertations, essays, tutorials and case studies that are useful for people who are involved in practical business in company or education activities, is delivered directly to you.
As for paper submission, limitational factors are reduced as possible so that one can submit a paper without having conference oral presentation as long as it is related to design engineering.
Invitation for conferences
JSDE annual conference has been held on each spring and autumn on every year and also held by branch’s discretion. Special symposiums and design forums are held at the same time. JSDE members can give presentations and exchange the latest research outcomes at those events.
Invitation to various events
JSDE has scheduled many workshops lectured by active trailblazers in industrial or educational field. Excursions are programmed several times on every year, except for factory tours that are held concurrently with annual conferences. Design Symposium is one of the biggest and most high-acclaimed event of JSDE, which has been held with latest trend of industrial or educational field as theme.
Research investigation activities
JSDE has established several specialized sectional boards focusing on significant issues on industrial and educational field, in order to promote joint researches between industrial and academic field. Outcomes from those activities are reported on our journals so that society members can obtain and utilize those informations immediately. Several projects titled “Commitee for drafting ISO/JIS standards” or “Commitee for CAD standardization”, delegated by Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, Ministry of International Trade and Industry are the examples of these activities.
Benefits for supporting members
(1) Each unit of supporting membership entitles three memberships for constituent persons.
(2) One constituent person per each unit of supporting membership can attend at conferences and workshops held by JSDE at no charge.
(3) The list of the supporting members is printed on JSDE journal.
(4) Discount of advertisement fee of JSDE journal is applied.
Discount of student membership fee
For students belong to specified educational agencies authorized by committee, membership fee becomes half off the regular membership fee.
5. The steering committee
46th and 47th Steering Committee on year 2023 and 2024
- President
- Nobuyuki Iwatsuki (Tokyo Inst. of Tech.)
- Vice Presidents
- Tamotsu Murakami (The Univ. of Tokyo) (Executive Director, Research Investigations)
- Kennichi Kobayashi (Meiji Univ.) (Publication)
- Tomoyuki Miyashita (Waseda Univ.) (Enterprise)
- Board Directors
- Kennichi Kobayashi (Meiji Univ.) (Publication)
- Toyomi Miyagawa (Nippon Institute of Tech.) (General Affairs and Finance)
- Tomoyuki Miyashita (Waseda Univ.) (Enterprise)
- Tamotsu Murakami (The Univ. of Tokyo) (Research Investigations)
- Executive Board Members in HQ
- Toru Ishida (Tokushima Univ.)
- Ryohei Ishimaru (Kurume National College of Tech.)
- Toshihiro Ito (Nagoya Institute of Tech.)
- Yusuke Ota (Chiba Institute of Tech.)
- Masayuki Ochiai (Tokai Univ.)
- Toshiharu Kazama (Muroran Inst. of Tech.)
- Takeo Kato (Keio Univ.)
- Keisuke Kato (Meiji Univ.)
- Kosei Kikuchi (Chiba Institute of Tech.)
- Koichiro Sato (Chiba Univ.)
- Takeshi Sawai (Osaka Sangyo Univ.)
- Toshitake Tateno (Meiji Univ.)
- Hidekichi Yanagisawa (Univ. of Tokyo)
- Yoshiaki Yamazaki (Meisei Univ.)
- Yosshida Hiroaki (Nihon Univ.)
- Auditor
- Jun Tomioka(Waseda Univ.)
- Yoshiyuki Matsuoka (Keio Univ.)
- Executive Board Members in Branches
- Hokkaido: Toshiharu Kazama (Muroran Inst. of Tech.)
- Tohoku: Tatsuya Ohmachi (Yamagata Univ.)
- Tokai: Toshihiro Ito (Nagoya Institute of Tech.)
- Hokuriku: Hitoshi Suwabe (Kanazawa Institute of Tech.)
- Kansai: Takeshi Sawai (Osaka Sangyo Univ.)
- Chugoku: Yasuhisa Sekiguchi (Kindai Univ.)
- Shikoku: Toru Ishida (Tokushima Univ.)
- Kyushu: Ryohei Ishimaru (Kurume National College of Tech.)
44th and 45th Steering Committee on year 2021 and 2022
For the history of previous presidents, directors and Councilors, please refere here.