The effect of expert decision-making style on the design process of innovative toothed gear pumps – a case study

urpose: The main goal of this research was to verify the adopted research thesis, i.e.: design engineers have a unique and uniform procedure applied in the decision-making process, which affects their ability to create new solutions. Design/methodology/approach: The paper's authors assumed that experts – design engineers have specific personality traits that determine their decision-making style. In order to verify this assumption was maked: analysis of selected personality traits of experts, assessment of individual decision-making styles, detailed analysis of the decision-making process, within which the design of innovative toothed gear pumps is carried out, decision-making analysis related to the development of a new innovative solution, analysis of the impact of personality traits and decision-making style on the process of designing innovative gear pumps. The study used tools such as the Decision-Making Styles Inventory – KSPD, Expert Behavior Questionnaire – EBQ, Expert Mind Questionnaire – EMQ, and SCAMPER technique. Findings: The analysis of the obtained results allows us to assume that the selected team of experts allows for creating and generating new solutions while maintaining the desired level of caution in the scope of risk analyses. In the case of forming project teams, the use of tools that support their selection, such as EBQ and EMQ, can be considered an advantage. Such analyses can be supplemented by the application of the KSPD. As a result of the broad analyses of the decision-maker's personality, it is possible to characterize the experts in terms of their predispositions to create new innovative solutions. Moreover, a distinctly rational approach to decision-making constitutes a common feature for designer engineers, which is supported by intuition at the same time. However, the research presented in the work shows that expert design engineers utilize intuition in their work and then make decisions based on facts and data. This style is strongly correlated with the areas of expert behaviors concerning cognitive motivation and open-mindedness. Originality/value: Identify unique personality traits for design engineers and define their impact on the effectiveness of their decisions. Keywords: decision-making process, design engineers, personality traits, intuition, rational approach. Category of the paper: Research paper, case study.