Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: This paper is based on an approach to the design of a mechanical device that takes into account its fundamentally situated and distributed dimensions into the design of a mechanical device.In particular, we consider the concurrent organisation of this activity.Following an analysis of conversational interaction, including an outline of the basic flow, two main points are highlighted.Firstly, it became clear that, right from the beginning of the design process, high priority must be given to organizing work sessions so that all the actors concerned are present and can work together on the product being designed.Secondly, the critical role of the artefacts produced and manipulated in this dynamic design process must not be overlooked.Our claim that there is an urgent need for « concurrent engineering » is more far-reaching than might, at first, appear.We show this to be true by way of a detailed analysis.This enabled us to account for the sequence of actions carried out by a group of designers, both from the standpoint of the language they used and the objects they manipulated.From within this framework, we present a particular work session during which five people collaborate to design a mechanical device that should keep planks in position on a machine tool.These actors are engineers who have different competences in the subject area.More precisely, through a sequence of drawings, we show that the emerging solution is based on the integration (in both the cognitive and social senses) of the points of view and skills of all five actors.Particular attention is paid to the role played by the drawings that are produced during the design process.Any study of the collaborative design of a product must take into account the analysis of the so-called intermediary objects which shape, together with the discursive production, the joint cognitive activity of design.For example, we show that the role of the gap between a conceptual representation of a solution and a micro-gesture can lead to irreversible changes that have a significant impact on the design process.Finally, we claim that this sort of work session analysis and the perspectives it leads to can form the basis of a clinical research program on the activity of collaborative design.
Source: Le travail humain
DOI: 10.3917/th.662.0101
Authors: Christian Brassac, N. Gregori
Institutions: Presses Universitaires de France, Université Nancy-II
Language: French
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2120215822