Developing a boundary object model to analyze communication interfaces : applications for system integrators

Physical information is transferred between technical systems through wires, beams, and other physical attributes, while more intangible information is typically transferred between communities of people through artifacts such as documents, e-mails, etc. This research attempts to characterize these communication interfaces better by analyzing the use of artifacts at these interfaces by means of a boundary object attribute model. Boundary objects, the metric of analysis of this thesis, are artifacts used to bridge information and knowledge gaps between different communities of practice. The US Army's Future Combat System (FCS) was chosen as a case study primarily because of its complex programmatic characteristics. The information gathered in the FCS case study was combined with knowledge from previous boundary object literature to generate an attributes model. Once developed, the boundary object attributes model was validated on the US Air Force Transformational Communications Satellite System (TSAT) program focusing specifically on the TSAT Mission Operations System (TMOS) segment of the program. Data were collected on the frequency and type of resources used to understand information and the dependencies that individuals have with each other for documented information. Furthermore, five communication artifacts were critiqued for their effectiveness as boundary objects. Statistical tests were conducted to highlight trends in resource dependencies and attributes common in effective boundary objects. An implication of this research is that the most important attributes for a boundary object are inclusivity, traceability, and synchronization. This research also found that people generally tend to rely much more on other people for information than artifacts. This introduces problems of exhausting valuable human resources and creating unnecessary bottlenecks.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Fong, Allan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ricardo Valerdi and Deborah Nightingale.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/42194

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/42194