A hospital operating table in the United States costs around $40,000. An operating table in Bangladesh can run between $5,000 and $30,000, depending on whether the hospital can spring the cash for a Western model or has to settle for a cheaper Chinese version. Even at the discount prices, hospitals in the impoverished South Asian country -- or in many other developing countries, for that matter -- can afford only one.

Hoping to bring operating tables to the masses, a team of Virginia Commonwealth University graduate students wants to design, build and ship a table for $500 -- one tenth the cost of what it takes the Chinese to deliver one. The only way they can possibly succeed is to approach the problem from a radically different perspective.

That's the kind of challenge that VCU's da Vinci Center for Innovation in Product Design and Development thrives upon. A joint initiative of the schools of business, engineering and design sponsored by seven major Richmond-area corporations, the program teams students from different disciplines as a way to stimulate creative, inter-disciplinary thinking.

In a formal presentation yesterday, Seule Kabir, Hitesh Patel and Jennifer Farris chronicled their effort over the past semester to crack the code: adapting off-the-shelf components already mass produced at very low prices, and shipping the tables in a "flat pack" mode that requires some assembly on site but saves on distribution costs.

Mike Troy, a consultant for Stryker Communications, Dallas-based designer of operating tables, says the team came up with some very promising ideas. He particularly liked the flat-pack recommendation, although he suggests that outsourcing manufacturing to China may have pitfalls the students haven't considered.

By general agreement, the design solution seemed promising enough to move to Phase Two: detailed mechanical and engineering drawings, material development and more detailed market research. Kabir, a native of Bangladesh, is motivated to see the project through to commercialization, if it can make it that far. Whether the students succeed in designing a marketable product or not, they have engaged in an incredible learning exercise.

As one VCU professor noted after the presentation, "This is not about the table. It's about learning how to solve problems."