Listening to users in a manufacturing organization: a context-based approach to the development of a computer-supported collaborative work system

This paper deals with the design and development of a computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) system to support product development, and its evaluation using a quasi-experimental approach in an industrial environment. The evaluation compared the performance of eight different subgroups using the CSCW system with their performance using the existing product development system. Task completion time, non-value added (NVA) time, and certain subjective measures were recorded for each of the two systems tested. Despite their minimal experience with the CSCW system, the subgroups took less time to perform five of the eight tasks with the CSCW system than with the existing system. These time savings were primarily a consequence of a substantial reduction in NVA activities. The mean percentage of total task time devoted to NVA activities dropped from 44% with the existing system to 6% with the CSCW system. Users also rated the CSCW system more favorably than the existing system in terms of the subjective measures.

This paper addresses the evaluation of a computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) system, designed using a context-based participatory approach, to support product development. The evaluation focused on the effectiveness and acceptance of the CSCW system in its intended use environment. Users were asked to use the system for a period of 60 business days to perform actual product development tasks. The frequency of use of the system and several subjective measures were recorded at fixed intervals during the evaluation. The highest usage was during the fourth (final) period of the evaluation and the lowest usage was during the second. Users tended to agree that the development capability and the potential benefits to the organization of the CSCW system exceeded those of the existing system. The results support the use of a context-based participatory approach to developing features of a CSCW system that meet not only functional needs, but also socio-technical ones. Through the evaluation, it was possible to determine tasks that were appropriate and others that were inappropriate for future integration into the CSCW system. The evaluation methodology also identified issues that hindered the adoption of the CSCW system. Strategies for adoption that deal with these issues are proposed.

The concept of time and the ordering of events are correlated key issues in distributed computing as well as in computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) systems. The paper revisits some of the assumptions that have generally been made regarding time and event ordering in distributed systems and argues that they are no longer appropriate if the goal is to faithfully preserve user intentions in CSCW systems. In particular, the following contributions are made in the context of collaborative editing systems. First, we discuss how the user intentions might be impacted when the finite duration of drawing operations are considered. Secondly, we propose that the total ordering of events should give the users the right of participation instead of being solely determined mechanically by the system. Thirdly, a new concept of an active whiteboard is proposed which supports various integrity constraints on objects and object groups to maintain user intentions in a more sophisticated way. Additionally, for the sake of completeness, the problem of maintaining consistency in the face of unreliable and high-latency communication channels is also covered.

Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) systems have attracted the attention of many software implementers on the area of multimedia applications, however very few of them have been used in agriculture. The necessity for using the CSCW environment in agriculture arises from the utilization and the rapid development of modern strategies of plant cultivation. In this paper we present the design of an agricultural CSCW system, which aims to provide integrated, web-based, services for cotton cultivation. Designing and developing such a system is a complex task that requires dealing with a great number of challenges. We focused on a number of important interrelated issues of user profiles, providing an overview and an insight on the way we address them. The proposed framework is intended to contribute to a unified view of requirements of a knowledge management support system by identifying core components and functionalities.

Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) can provide an efficient decision-making environment for multi-disciplinary teams faced with the challenge of evaluating agile manufacturing systems. In this paper, the development and evaluation of CSCW prototypes to aid the systematic evaluation of agile manufacturing systems are described. An industrial case study involving the evaluation of alternative design configurations of a cellular manufacturing system (CMS) for agile manufacturing was used for testing with twelve multi-disciplinary teams. The results obtained suggest that engineering design teams can obtain productivity improvements through the use of CSCW tools. The results indicate that CSCW systems can assist decision-makers in reaching consensus especially when advanced decision making tools are incorporated into the problem-solving framework. In this study, we also found that an enhanced CSCW with a neural network module for preference aggregation outperformed a basic CSCW in: (1) decision quality, (2) users' satisfaction and agreement, (3) consensus. These results also have far reaching implications for distributed product development teams that face the problem of reaching consensus on a range of alternative designs with stringent pressures to reduce development time.

This paper examines issues related to humancentered design of computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) systems. Techniques for assessing the usability of collaborative systems are addressed, with emphasis on a heuristic approach to evaluate a CSCW system. Specifically, limitations encountered during the project and recommendations for both the CSCW system and the heuristic evaluation are discussed.

The parallel computation is a wildly used technology in many researches. As a system project, the Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) system also can adopts parallel computation to accelerate the system's performance and device usage. The Web cluster is chosen to realize the parallel computation which is the easiest and most available method to construct the parallel system. In order to improve the system's performance, a new scheduling algorithm named ASAS is involved: meanwhile the GPU is also used as another co-processor based on CUDA. Through the evaluation, we conclude that the web cluster binding CUDA is suitable and efficient in CSCW system.

Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) related applications tend to be a trend for most successful businesses, organizations and domains nowadays, as is the Healthcare sector. Healthcare specialists often work in remote areas facing many problems and challenges driven mainly from the limitations and constraints of the mobile and wireless technologies in relation to the tasks at hand. Due to the sensitive area of healthcare provision, this chapter discusses that additional features need to be incorporated in current CSCW systems, like the dynamic creation of medical virtual teams, dynamic workflows and the automatic triggered events upon time expiration, in order to be more effective and efficient. In this respect and having in mind the new Web 2.0 characteristics, a set of new features applied in our proposed CSCW system, DITIS, is analyzed in an attempt to encapsulate all the needs of eHealth applications. Furthermore, an extensive evaluation of the system is presented, supporting the need for such enhancements since a significant increase in communication, coordination and collaboration has been shown among the subjects.

Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) related applications tend to be a trend for most successful businesses, organizations and domains nowadays, as is the Healthcare sector. Healthcare specialists often work in remote areas facing many problems and challenges driven mainly from the limitations and constraints of the mobile and wireless technologies in relation to the tasks at hand. Due to the sensitive area of healthcare provision, this chapter discusses that additional features need to be incorporated in current CSCW systems, like the dynamic creation of medical virtual teams, dynamic workflows and the automatic triggered events upon time expiration, in order to be more effective and efficient. In this respect and having in mind the new Web 2.0 characteristics, a set of new features applied in our proposed CSCW system, DITIS, is analyzed in an attempt to encapsulate all the needs of eHealth applications. Furthermore, an extensive evaluation of the system is presented, supporting the need for such enhancements since a significant increase in communication, coordination and collaboration has been shown among the subjects.

An integrated CSCW architecture for integrated product/process design and development

Relying on Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) technology, expert system (ES) can extend its capabilities from only one working to set up a cooperative labor environment for a group of expert systems working together. In order to more effectively support those remote substations fault diagnosis as well as related departments involvements. Web-based CSCW systems are intensively recommended. The paper for that proposes a framework of CSCW system with Web-based for remote substation fault diagnosis. The system applies Multi-Agent (MA) technology to construct distributed expert systems platform, and presents the collaboration and communication framework of the platform using J21EE. The system is applied in remote substation fault diagnosis, and is proved very effective.KeywordsExpert SystemFault DiagnosisUser AgentForeign AgentJava Virtual MachineThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This paper discusses the Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) methods that can facilitate the work of embedded systems. The focus is on how to design and build effective embedded network architecture, and which CSCW tools should be used in embedded system. A brief conception of CSCW and embedded system is presented, followed by designing and building an embedded network system currently available, and CSCW tools used in embedded systems are discussed additionally. Finally, predictions are made on what CSCW for embedded systems might expect to be in future years.Key wordsCSCWEmbedded System

The past decades yielded fundamental changes to the ways in which value creation is being organized. Globalization and market deregulation motivate businesses to expand into new, often remote markets, which requires them to decentralize and distribute work and often to partner with local organizations, which in turn brings with it changes to the ways in which people need to organize their work (Bleecker 1994). Also, shorter product life-cycles and the pressure to constantly innovate have led many businesses to experiment with new organizational structures (Quinn 1992). This leads to a situation, in which businesses today need to manage numerous external collaborative relationships with other parties in the marketplace (Ebers 1999). Furthermore, traditional internal structures are being broken up in order to give way to more flexible and responsive work setups. The ramifications of these developments are that people increasingly work in dispersed setups and are involved in changing, multi-project setups with others from different organizational backgrounds and geographical sites (Belanger et al. 2003; Lipnack and Stamps 2000; Weinkauf et al. 2004). Hence, since people often do not share the same organizational and physical environments with their direct work associates, they have to rely on technology to create shared virtual work environments. In the above context, eCollaboration as a topic refers to all issues of ICT-based collaborations within and between organizations. More specifically, the term eCollaboration describes practices of communication, coordination and collaboration between people in distributed contexts, such as projects, (virtual) teams, or processes in and between organizations, which are enabled by Information and Collaboration Technology, in essence: eCollaboration systems. Alternative terms exist to describe this class of ICT, such as: Groupware system, CSCW system, Workgroup Computing, Collaborative Software or Cooperation systems. eCollaboration systems have come a long way since the first experimental systems were piloted and spearheaded by the Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) research community (Greif 1988; Schmidt 1991; Teufel 1996; Wendel 1996). Today, fuelled by advances in software and in particular Internet technology (e.g. Web 2.0 interface techniques) many new systems and technologies have emerged. However, while technology vendors stress the new possibilities offered by their products for managing collaborations, the realities in distributed projects, virtual teams, and inter-organizational networks quite often paint a different picture. E-Collaboration is a complex, precarious, and too often rather ineffective undertaking. While the resulting (virtual) work environments present manifold managerial challenges, at the same time the respective eCollaboration technologies are still emerging at a fast pace. Computer software and telecommunications technology are increasingly converging to create new integrated eCollaboration platforms, while the K. Riemer (*) The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia e-mail: k.riemer@econ.usyd.edu.au

ABSTRACTThis study explores the use of Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) technologies, by way of a computer-based system called iCohere. This system was used to facilitate collaboration conducting Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Data was gathered from 13 members of a Community Collaborative Board (CCB). Analysis revealed that iCohere served the following functions: facilitating communication, providing a depository for information and resource sharing, and allowing for remote meeting attendance. Results indicated that while iCohere was useful in performing these functions, less expensive technologies had the potential to achieve similar goals if properly implemented. Implications for future research on CSCW systems and CBPR are discussed.

Information Technology (IT) has a significant impact on our lives beyond mere information access and distribution. IT shapes access to services, technology, and people. The design and use of IT can change people’s communication styles and the way they work, either individually or in a group. The recent introduction of groupware and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) systems enables people to collaborate with fewer time and space constraints and affects people’s lives and their cultures in the long term. CSCW is a new and fast developing research field. The terms groupware and CSCW were coined in the mid-1980s. The study of CSCW and groupware could be defined as a middle field of research between the study of single user applications (e.g., human-computer interaction [HCI] research) and applications for organizations (e.g., information systems [IS] or management information system [MIS] research) (Grudin, 1994). CSCW studies the way people work in groups as well as technological solutions that pertain to computer networking with associated hardware, software, services, and techniques (Wilson, 1991). There are several alternative labels used to denominate CSCW applications: groupware, group support systems (GSS), collaborative computing, workgroup computing, and multiuse applications. Some of the key issues studied in CSCW include commuter-mediated communication, awareness and coordination, and multi-user interfaces. However, there has been very limited research to account for culture in CSCW. In this article, we discuss the role of culture in the design and implementation of CSCW systems that support work in cross-cultural contexts. We first present two different perspectives on culture in the literature. We then review prior research in both HCI and IS fields and follow with a summary of preliminary research work in CSCW about cross-cultural group work. We conclude by discussing alternative approaches to design and by suggesting a theoretical tool that may inform future research on the cultural factors in CSCW.