Socio-cognitive analysis of engineering systems design : shared knowledge, process, and product

This research is based on the well-known but seldom stated premise that the design of complex engineered systems is done by people -- each with their own knowledge, thoughts, and views about the system being designed. To understand the implications of this social dimension, the Integrated Concurrent Engineering (ICE) environment, a real-world setting for conceptual space mission design, is examined from technical and social perspectives. An integrated analysis demonstrates a relationship among shared knowledge, process, and product. The design process is analyzed using a parameter-based Design Structure Matrix (DSM). This model, consisting of 682 dependencies among 172 parameters, is partitioned (reordered) to reveal a tightly coupled design process. Further analysis shows that making starting assumptions about design budgets leads to a straightforward process of well-defined and sequentially executed design iterations. To analyze the social aspects, a network-based model of shared knowledge is proposed. By quantifying team members' common views of design drivers, a network of shared mental models is built to reveal the structure of shared knowledge at a snapshot in time. A structural comparison of pre-session and post-session networks is used to compute a metric of change in shared knowledge. Based on survey data from 12 design sessions, a correlation is found between change in shared knowledge and each of several system attributes, including technological maturity, development time, mass, and cost. Integrated analysis of design process and shared knowledge yields three interdisciplinary insights.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Avnet, Mark Sean

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Annalisa L. Weigel.

• Engineering Systems Division.

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/1721.1/52782

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/52782