A craftsman is the Designer, Manufacturer and Salesmen all in one.

Prior to the industrial revolution, a “village smithy” was a staple of every town.   A blacksmith is a person who creates products from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut hot metal.  Figure 1. shows a blacksmith at work.  Blacksmiths produce products such as gates, grilles, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, agricultural implements, decorative and religious items, cooking utensils, and weapons.   Since the blacksmith designed the product, manufactured the product and sold the product, he knew what problems his cutomeers wanted solved, how to design a solution to the problem and how to manufacture the solution.     Figure 1. A blacksmith at work forging a product.

As long at the design, manufacure and sales functions were all carried out by one person no communication problems existed.  However, when technology became more complex people began to specialize in different areas of the product design cycle.  This gave rise to sales people, manufacturing experts, desing experts and a design process known as “over-the-wall” design.