Concurrent Engineering in Research Projects to Support Information Content Management in a Collective Way

Abstract

Innovation has become a factor of competition. In order to increase the production of new knowledge, Concurrent Engineering (CE) could be applied to research activities by improving efficiency and reliability in the communication between the researchers. In the same way, research activities could also profit from approaches such as quality management and knowledge management. To this end, in this article, within a CE integrated team, research activities are analyzed in depth using a sociological study. Approaches harnessing the bibliographical work done by researchers are proposed - ANITA (ANnotation tool for Industrial TeAms) and MICA-Graph. Their associated communication tools are developed and undergo experimentation. The intention is to facilitate research activities by supporting information artifacts (textual and graphical such as sketches). These new and ergonomic groupware prototypes working on PC networks tend to be used to control two kinds of artifact: (1) Semi Structured Information (e.g., reports, etc.) thanks to the ANITA functions, that are based on the attribution of points of view and annotations on artifacts, and (2) Non Structured Information (such as mail, dialogues, etc.), thanks to the MICA-Graph approach, which is intended to support the exchange of messages that concern common resolution of research problems within CE-integrated teams and to capitalize relevant knowledge. It also provides facilities to structure and archive knowledge learned during this process owing to new methods of design sketch retrieval. For both approaches, the main feedback utilized involves manufacturing knowledge in the EADS industrial environment.