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With rapid growth of global competition, the design process is becoming more and more complex due largely to cross-functional team collaboration, dynamic design processes, and unpredictable design outcomes. Thus, it is becoming progressively more difficult to support and improve design activities effectively during a design process, especially from a collaboration perspective. Although a great deal of research pays attention to the support and improvement of design collaboration from multi-perspectives, little research attention has been directed at improving collaborative design by a performance measurement approach. In addition, many studies have demonstrated that performance measurement can improve design effectiveness significantly. Therefore, this PhD research focused on investigating ‘How to improve collaborative design via a performance measurement approach?’ A Design Performance Measurement (DPM) tool, which enables design managers and designers to measure and improve design collaboration during a design process, has been developed. The DPM tool can support the design team members in learning from performance measurement and, in turn, drive the design project towards the achievement of strategic objectives, and goes beyond monitoring and controlling them during the project development process. It is, thus, a motivating tool as well as a support tool for the development of product design. The proposed DPM tool has three novel components: • A DPM operation model, which integrates a hierarchical design team structure with a multi-feedback interaction performance measurement approach to support DPM operation in a design project team. • A DPM matrix, which enables collaborative design performance to be measured during a design process. • A DPM weighting application model to improve flexibility of the DPM tool by integrating DPM with the design project’s strategies, stage-based design objectives, and design staff’s job focuses and responsibilities. This tool has been positively evaluated through two industry case studies and a software-based simulation.

<p> The ethics training program of the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Alaska District, a recipient of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) 2010 Education and Communication Award, was studied to determine if the training fostered employee awareness of unethical situations within the workplace. The study fills a gap in scholarly literature in that never before had a peer-review study been done to examine how ethics training fosters awareness within an award-winning federal agency. The method and design used for collecting the data was the qualitative exploratory case study. Seven data sources were analyzed using NVivo 10 ^&reg; software and Microsoft Excel and conclusions drawn by use of data source triangulation. Two primary data sources used were responses from two sets of interview questions: one set with 15 employees and another set with two ethics training coordinators. The other five sources of data evidence used were the OGE 2009 Education and Commission Awards Announcement, the OGE 2009 Education and Communication Award Application Form submitted by Alaska District to OGE, samples of the <i>Ethics Monthly Treats,</i> and comments made by the interviewees on the 2-minute ethics video (<i>Secret Ethics Man</i>), and brownbag lunches. The framework for this study was Gagne&rsquo;s theoretical instructional design model. The three emerging themes were: ethics information was distributed frequently, innovative delivery methods, and content of ethics instruction. The results of the study indicate that the design, delivery, and components of the training program may have been effective in fostering employee awareness of unethical situations within the workplace.</p>

The thesis investigates the nature and value of crafts knowledges in the context of the new product development (NPD) process. Its aim is to develop an empirically-derived understanding of the potential benefits for both crafts practitioners and manufacturers of collaborative NPD, and of the factors influencing its outcome. The study adopted a grounded theory methodology, deriving theory from the lived experiences of participants in collaborative projects. Crafts practitioners, crafts-based manufacturers and designers with differing backgrounds and motivations were interviewed in relation to their own perceptions and experiences of the NPD process and its management. From this study, a network of inter-related case studies was developed, enabling comparative evaluation to be undertaken. Data analysis was conducted in relation to an emerging theoretical framework which drew upon an ongoing, critical review of literature relating to theories of design management, cognitive psychology, communication in design, and craft and design epistemologies. The thesis finds that the manufacturers' NPD activities were facilitated by the involvement of crafts practitioners, which resulted in significant intangible gains in addition to successful product outcomes. Collaboration was discovered in exemplary cases to enhance competitiveness, mobilising latent knowledge-based resources and learning capabilities, whilst initiating developments in organisational culture. For the crafts practitioners interviewed, the industrial environment was discovered to offer new affordances and constraints, which could then become a catalyst to creativity. In summary, the research: identifies the impact of crafts knowledges on the NPD process and its intangible outcomes. proposes strategies for the rejuvenation of the crafts-based industries. identifies problems inherent in collaboration and factors influencing project outcome. proposes implications for practitioners, manufacturers, educators and training providers. critiques theoretical advocacy for crafts-industry collaboration.

The value of establishing design requirements is well-argued and the need for their clear representation in the material used to brief designers is recognised. However, very little attention has been given as to how the design requirements should be represented for use by industrial designers and whether, or how, such representations benefit design. The research presented in the thesis aims to explore approaches to the organisation and presentation of design brief requirements for effective use by designers. We first examined how design requirements are specified, organised and represented in theory and practice. The role of design requirements in the design problem-solving process was analysed to gain insight into how explicit requirement representation might benefit the design process. An experimental study, using protocol analysis, was then conducted to investigate the impact of explicitly representing design requirements in achieving the theoretical benefits for such representations. The results indicate the explicit representation of design brief requirements yields systematic enhancements including increased utilisation of design requirements and the production of solutions assessed as meeting design requirements more successfully. Thus, the findings support the proposition that the manner in which design requirements are represented will impact upon the design process and the designers' performance. In line with the research findings, recommendations are made about how the organisation and presentation of requirements may be manipulated to achieve maximum positive enhancement and minimal negative reduction in the quality of the design process

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The engineering and design of complex systems often requires that multiple design tasks be executed in parallel or overlapping efforts. When the design of individual subsystems is distributed among multiple organizations, challenges arise with respect to managing design productivity and coordinating successful collaborative exchanges. Research and development engineering projects compound these challenges further due to their inherently greater uncertainty. This report examines several factors that influence design productivity in the collaborative research and development environment, including the selection of subsystem interfaces, design information management, and complexity management. A collaborative research and development project to upgrade the Hobby-Eberly Telescope is introduced to provide case examples and illustrate the proposed value of subsequent management recommendations. / text

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