Visual representations for communication in geographically distributed new product development projects

Abstract

This study addresses the role of visual representations in supporting communication between an R&D team and geographically distributed suppliers for a new product development (NPD) project. It specifically focuses on the design and use of visual representations as a feasible way for communication between the distributed actors when they face communication challenges originating from differences in skills in the English language, but also from differences in work experiences. Relying on empirical materials from a Swedish manufacturing company in the mechanical engineering industry, this paper makes the following contributions to the literature. First, it shows that visual representations are effective boundary objects able to support process-oriented and product-oriented communication in distributed NPD projects. Second, it illustrates that visual representations do not necessarily have to follow graphic design principles, but can still be effective if distributed actors share the same project context. Finally, it highlights the need for a dynamic and context-dependent perspective on communication in NPD projects.

Integration Across Knowledge Boundaries During New Product Introduction

“…Prior research [12] acknowledges that an effective transformation process requires existing of both shared syntax and language, as well as shared meaning across the actors. Type of boundaries and integration processes [11] Several studies indicate that integration of product and production development across knowledge boundary requires objects, spanners, and arenas [1] [2]. Research [12] points out that effective objects that support integration at a syntactic boundary need to establish a shared language (vocabulary) which is enough to represent knowledge, like repositories.…”

“…Today's trends in manufacturing are associated among others with shorter product life cycles, changing customer requirements, new technology, environmental and safety regulations, high-cost pressure, and increased degree of automation in production. To be competitive in a harsh market it becomes critical for a company to achieve successful new product introduction (NPI) [1] [2]. NPI is associated with all activities that are necessary to adapt the product and production system to each other during development of a new product [3].…”

Employee’s Job Satisfaction with Computer Mediated Communication System

“…With the enormous competition in business world, the most of the organizations eager to adopt new technological improvements and innovations to their practices for maximizing the employees and organizational performance (Paraskeva, Eriksson, Johansson, & Peter, 2019;Bordi, Tammi, & Okkonen, 2014). The high speed communication is most important fact in current competitive business world.…”

Research methods in Engineering Design: A systematic literature review

“…Workshops are frequently used for evaluating results and sharing experiences by a group of experts with discussions (McKinnon & Sade, 2019;Self, 2019;Van der Linden et al, 2019aWlazlak et al, 2019). In (Genç et al, 2018;Martinec et al, 2019), the workshops become designing activities in the research-through-design methodology.…”

“…The opinions of stakeholders can be the core of the research study (Self, 2019) or they can be used as part of usability tests (Takahashi et al, 2018). Most often, questionnaires and interviews are performed with users of a product (Hanrahan et al, 2019;Ozer & Cebeci, 2019;Roesler et al, 2019;Selvefors et al, 2018); by active participants of the process under analysis, such as professionals in companies (Reimlinger et al, 2019;Wlazlak et al, 2019); or by students that are required to do a project (Abi Akle et al, 2019;Graeff et al, 2019;Y. Li et al, 2019;Vegt et al, 2019).…”