Renforcés par les avancées technologiques des « Sciences et Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (STIC) », les Travaux Pratiques électroniques « e-TP » sont devenus un mode d’enseignement incontournable surtout dans les disciplines techniques et scientifiques. Plusieurs modes d’e-TP ont émergé : TP virtuel, TéléTP, TP présentiel assisté par ordinateur, TP en réalité augmentée... ces derniers modes nécessitant l'usage de dispositifs matériels (maquette pédagogique, appareils de mesure, robots, etc.). Dans la majorité des cas, avant ou même pendant une session d'e-TP, il est nécessaire de (re)configurer ces dispositifs selon des besoins pédagogiques. Cette reconfiguration nécessite, pour des systèmes complexes, comme les Systèmes Automatisés de Production (SAP), des compétences que l'instructeur ne possède pas systématiquement. Ce qui impose la présence d'un technicien ou limite le nombre d'instructeurs susceptibles d'utiliser la plate-forme pédagogique. Ce travail de recherche a pour objectif de faciliter la (re)configuration de systèmes complexes, particulièrement les SAP, dans le cadre d'e-TPs. Une première enquête auprès des utilisateurs de l’« AIP-Priméca-RAO » (situé à l’INSA de Lyon) a révélé les besoins et contraintes liés à une plate-forme de ce type. Il s'est avéré qu'au-delà de la (re)configuration, l'absence d'outil commun de gestion des ressources pédagogiques faisait perdre un temps précieux aux utilisateurs. Ce constat a nourri la conception d'un outil informatique gérant une chaîne éditoriale dont le but est de simplifier la création, l’édition, l’assemblage, l’organisation et la réutilisation des différentes ressources à exploiter dans une session d’e-TP. Cet outil a également pour objectif d’améliorer l’autonomie de l’instructeur lors de la préparation de sessions d’e-TP tout en réduisant le temps requis pour configurer cette session. Cela a impliqué d’automatiser le processus de reconfiguration du SAP support d'e-TP, et de publication des scénarios pédagogiques sur un système de gestion d’apprentissage « LMS » (Learning Management System). Un prototype a été développé et testé sur des e-TPs réels afin de valider cette conception. Cet outil pourrait, ultérieurement, être rendu plus générique afin de servir des e-TPs dans d'autres disciplines. / Powered by the technological advances of the “Information and communication sciences and technologies”, the Electronic Laboratory for Practical Training “ELab” (also known as ELab hands-on training) has become an inescapable teaching mode especially in the technical and scientific disciplines. Thus, several ELab modes have emerged: virtual ELab, remote ELab, Local Elab, augmented reality ELab, etc. The latter require the use of hardware devices (educational mock ups, measuring instruments, robots, etc.). In most cases, before or during an ELab session, these devices need to be reconfigured according to teaching purposes. For complex systems, like Automated Production Systems (APS), this reconfiguration process requires technical skills which the instructor does not have systematically. This imposes that a technician should be available, failing which the usage of the pedagogical platform will be limited to a few skilled instructors. Accordingly, this research aims at facilitating the reconfiguration process of complex systems (particularly the APS) featuring ELabs. A first survey designated to the users of « AIP-Priméca-RAO », located at the INSA de Lyon, has revealed the needs and constraints related to such a platform. It has been highlighted that beyond the (re)configuration process, a waste of precious time was detected. It has been established that it was due to the absence of a common tool for pedagogical resource management. This observation fed the design of a software tool managing an editorial chain aiming at simplifying creation, edition, assembling, organization, and the reutilization of different resources that can be exploited in an ELab session. This tool is also intended to improve the autonomy of the instructor during the preparation of an ELab session, by reducing the required time to configure this session. This implies to automate the reconfiguration process of an APS supporting the ELab and the publishing of the pedagogical learning scenarios on a Learning Management System (LMS). In order to validate this design, a prototype has been developed and tested on real Elab cases. Subsequently, this tool could be rendered more generic so that it can serve Elabs in different disciplines.

Kollaboratives Schreiben (KS) bezeichnet das gemeinsame Erstellen eines Textdokuments in einer Gruppe, deren Mitglieder zur gleichen Zeit oder an unterschiedlichen Zeiten, am gleichen oder an unterschiedlichen Orten arbeiten können. Ausgehend von einer detaillierten KS-Analyse und den daraus resultierenden Anforderungen an softwaregestützte KS-Systeme, werden zunächst typischen Entwurfsmuster für die Implementation derartiger Systeme herausgearbeitet. Im Anschluss daran werden zwei unterschiedliche Software-Architekturen entwickelt und diskutiert. Zum einen ist dies eine Erweiterung des etablierten Protokollstandards WebDAV um eine auf Textabschnitten basierende Synchronisation, zum anderen eine idealtypische Architektur für ein neu zu entwickelndes KS-System, welche im Gegensatz zu herkömmlichen Textverarbeitungssystem nicht nur den Text sondern ein Projekt, bestehend aus Text und dessen verknüpften bzw. begleitenden Ressourcen, in den Mittelpunkt der Kollaboration stellt. / Collaborative writing (CW) is a joint work to create a text document in a group whose members are working at different times and at different locations. Firstly, based on a detailed analysis of CW and the resulting demands on software-based CW systems, typical patterns for the implementation of such systems are identified. Subsequently, two different software architectures are developed and discussed. While the first is an extension of the established protocol standard WebDAV to include a section based text synchronization. The second is an ideal type architecture for a newly developed CW system, which in contrast to a conventional word processing system takes not only the text at the center of collaboration but a complete project consisting of text and its linked or associated resources.

La question de la transition numérique est primordiale en conception architecturale. L’objectif de notre recherche est de proposer des pratiques collaboratives afin de faciliter cette transition numérique. Nous nous concentrons sur des pratiques dites « agiles » permettant d’améliorer la communication et la coordination entre architectes, ingénieurs ou encore le maître d’ouvrage. Ces pratiques doivent permettre à ces acteurs d’échanger leurs intentions architecturales et de les évaluer tout en s’assurant que leurs propositions sont satisfaisantes vis-à-vis des besoins du client. Ces pratiques consistent à remplir collaborativement un cahier d’intentions, nécessitant alors confrontations d’opinions, à jouer à un jeu de cartes obligeant tous les concepteurs à prendre la parole, à réaliser des réunions courtes et quotidiennes afin d’expliquer son avancement ou encore à être un coach dont l’objectif est de faciliter la vie de ses collaborateurs. / The question of digital transition is a key issue in architectural design. The objective of our research is to propose collaborative practices to facilitate this digital transition. We focus on so-called "agile" practices to improve communication and coordination between architects, engineers or project owner. These practices must allow these actors to exchange their architectural intentions and evaluate them while ensuring that their proposals are satisfactory concerning the client's needs. These practices consist in collaboratively filling out a book of intentions, requiring confrontations of opinions, playing a card game obliging all designers to speak out, holding short, daily meetings to explain their progress or being a coach, whose objective is to make life easier for their employees.

No description available.

Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le contexte de l’Innovation Sociale pour le développement durable et porte sur l’anticipation d’un système sociotechnique citoyen innovant favorable à une gestion écologique et partagée des ressources. Ce type d’innovation implique les idéologies individuelles et collectives (les idées et les valeurs propres à un individu ou à un groupe et qui orientent les actions / discours de cet individu / ce groupe). La recherche s’intéresse spécifiquement à la mobilisation de la dimension idéologique en conception collaborative de ce type d’innovation. La thèse défendue est la suivante : à travers la discussion et le débat sur les solutions de conception, sont co-construites des connaissances « sociotechniques » relatives à l’objet même à concevoir, ainsi que des connaissances « idéologiques » relatives aux valeurs que doit véhiculer cet objet. L’acceptabilité collective du futur système repose sur l’articulation de ces deux dimensions épistémiques, et cette articulation est soutenue par des interactions argumentatives constructives. Nous avons adopté la démarche méthodologique de l’ergonomie prospective et proposons un cycle de conception en trois étapes : 1) L’analyse d’un système sociotechnique de référence, 2) La création de systèmes sociotechniques probables, 3) La simulation d’un système sociotechnique imaginé. Les trois étapes sont des situations de conception collaborative. Elles ont été menées avec des usagers de la société civile. Les résultats constituent un socle pour le développement de méthodes et d’outils réflexifs visant à soutenir la conception collaborative de systèmes sociotechniques qui impliquent fortement la dimension idéologique. / This thesis concerns the context of Social Innovation for sustainable development. The thesis relates to the anticipation of an innovative and citizen sociotechnical system that encourages ecological and shared uses of resources. This type of innovation involves individual and collective ideologies. The notion of ideology is understood here as a system of ideas and values, specific to an individual or a group, and which guide action and/or appear in discourse. Our research focuses on the mobilization of the ideological dimension during the collaborative design of this type of innovation. The defended thesis is: through discourse and debate about design solutions, "sociotechnical" knowledge is co-elaborated (related to the object that is designed) as well as "ideological" knowledge (in relation to the values that have to be conveyed by the object). The common acceptability of the future system is based on the articulation of these two epistemic dimensions; and this articulation is supported by constructive argumentative interactions. We have adopted the methodological approach of the prospective ergonomics and we propose a three-step design cycle: 1) The analysis of an inspiring socio-technical system, 2) The construction of hypothetical socio-technical systems, 3) The simulation of a hypothetical sociotechnical system. All of the three steps are collaborative design situations. They were implemented with citizens. The results of our research are useful for the development of reflexive methods and tools that support the collaborative design of sociotechnical systems that strongly imply an ideological dimension.

[pt] A inclusão de pessoas com deficiência em ambientes de ensinoaprendizagem formais é recente. A última lei é a Lei de Inclusão Brasileira (LBI,2015). Com as mudanças, o número de alunos com Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA), incluídos em ambientes de ensino-aprendizagem regulares, aumentou significativamente nos últimos anos. Assim, como a formação de professores de Educação Básica é anterior a LBI, levantamos o pressuposto de que ela pouco contempla o atendimento a situações de inclusão. Estabelecemos, então, como uma questão de pesquisa, a questão de como o Design poderia potencializar a visibilidade de experiências de inclusão. Assumimos, assim, como objetivo, integrar formadores e alunos em prol da constituição desses ambientes. Para tanto, nosso percurso metodológico tomou por base a abordagem do Design Participativo, para entendermos como essa inclusão vinha sendo realizada. Escolhemos como campo de estudo três escolas particulares da cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Paralelamente, visitamos ambientes de educação não formais para visualizarmos pontos de encontro e desencontro entre a educação formal regular e a especializada. Durante todo o percurso, tivemos a participação de pessoas com TEA. Constatamos ser de extrema importância a participação e a interação dessas pessoas na pesquisa. Desenvolvemos um recurso para dar visibilidade às crianças com TEA em ambientes de ensino-aprendizagem inclusivos. Esse recurso possibilita a visualização espacial de onde essas crianças estão sendo inseridas em sala de aula. Assim, os professores podem compartilhar e debater com outros profissionais sobre suas experiências. O recurso cria a oportunidade do reconhecimento de experiências inclusivas por parte do formador e diminui a fragmentação do processo de inclusão da criança com TEA no ambiente de ensino-aprendizagem. / [en] The inclusion of people with disabilities in formal teaching-learning environments is recent in Brazil. The last law is the Brazilian Inclusion Law (LBI, 2015). Because of LBI, the number of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has increased significantly in recent years in regular teaching-learning environments. Thus, since the formation of Basic Education teachers precedes LBI, we raise the assumption that it does not contemplate much of situations of inclusion. We then established as a research question how design could enhance the visibility of inclusion experiences. We thus aim to integrate teachers and students in favor of the constitution of these environments. For this purpose, our methodological course was based on the Participative Design approach to understand how this inclusion was being carried out. We established three private schools in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In parallel, we visited non-formal education environments to visualize points of encounter and mismatch between regular and specialized formal education. Throughout the course we had the participation of people with ASD. We find it extremely important their participation and their interaction in the research. We have developed a resource to give visibility to children with ASD in inclusive teaching-learning environments. This feature enables the spatial view of where these children are being placed in the classroom. With records of their practices, teachers can share and debate with other professionals about their experiences. The resource facilitates the recognition of inclusive experiences by the teacher and reduces the fragmentation of the inclusion of the child with ASD in the teachinglearning environment.

This master thesis aims to examine how the transfer of product related information is carried out in the manufacturing industry. The study was supposed to give suggestions for improving the CAD courses provided at Linköping University. This thesis is the concluding step for the authors’ master’s degree in mechanical engineering.In the beginning of the project a study of relevant literature was made. The literature was aimed to gain more knowledge of the subject at hand and finding relevant methods for collecting and analyzing data. To examine how the industry deals with product related data a multiple case study was conducted, investigating seven different companies that are working with both product development and production. As data collection method, semi-structured interviews of employees on the different companies were conducted.An adaptation of the “affinity diagram technique” was used when analyzing the collected data. The method divided the answers to questions provided by the different companies into different categories, in the form of statements. These where compared between the companies by the use of tables, showing the results in a clear manner. To give better insight in each company´s methods, a descriptive summary was written for each of the studied companies.To be able to give propositions of improvement for the courses at the University, some of the courses given where analyzed by reviewing the course description and goals, and through informal interviews of the course administrator. This led to better insight in what is included in the courses and what they are supposed to teach the students. The knowledge of what is included in the courses at this time and the results of the study of the companies, were the foundation when determining what could be changed in the courses.The case study showed that it varies greatly how much the companies are adapting new approaches for generating and spreading product related data. This made it difficult to find tangible evidence supporting changes to the courses, however, a few conclusions could be drawn from the results. It was found that 2D-drawings are still used to a great extent for carrying product related information. Only one of the studied companies have transitioned to using the 3D-model as an information carrier. Although it was mentioned on some of the other companies that such an approach seemed interesting.The study also showed that less handling of physical papers seems to be something most companies are interested in, and are also trying to achieve. It was also noted that all the companies studied had implemented some form of digital platform for handling product related documents.A few things that were deemed worth implementing in the mandatory courses were the introduction to PDM/PLM, introduction of 3D-annotations for dimensions and tolerances and increased use of the 3D-model for manufacturing operations. / Detta examensarbete ämnar undersöka hur informationsöverföringen av produktrelaterad data sker i industrin för att kunna ge förbättringsförslag för Linköpings Universitets CAD- och ritteknikskurser. Detta för att kurserna bättre ska spegla industrins nuvarande och även framtida behov. Examensarbetet utfördes på avdelningen maskinkonstruktion vid Linköpings Universitet och är det avslutande momentet på författarnas civilingenjörsutbildning i maskinteknik.Till att börja med utfördes en litteraturstudie. Detta för att ge kunskap inom det aktuella området och vilka metoder som kan användas för datainsamling och analys. För att undersöka hur industrins arbetssätt ser ut utfördes en flerfallstudie på sju olika företag som bedriver produktutveckling tillsammans med egen produktion. Som datainsamlingsmetod valdes semistrukturerade intervjuer med anställda på de olika företagen.Analysen utfördes med hjälp av en adaption av ”affinity diagram technique” vilket delade upp företagens svar i kategorier i form av påståenden. Dessa jämfördes mellan företagen med hjälp av tabeller eftersom det var tydligt sätt att representera resultatet. För att ge en inblick i hur varje enskilt företag arbetar utarbetades även en deskriptiv sammanfattning av varje företag.För att kunna ge förbättringsförslag till universitetets CAD- och ritteknikskurser granskades några av de nuvarande kursernas kursplaner. Detta tillsammans med en informell intervju av de kursansvariga ledde till bättre insikt om hur kurserna är uppbyggda och vad målen med dem är. Insikten om vad kurserna innehåller i dagsläget tillsammans med analysen av de studerade företagens arbetssätt bidrog till att ett antal förbättringsförslag kunde föreslås.Det visade sig att graden av användande av modernare arbetssätt varierar kraftigt bland företagen. Detta gjorde det svårt att komma fram till ett enhetligt resultat som gällde för alla de studerade företagen. Däremot kunde ett antal slutsatser dras. Bland annat används fortfarande 2D-ritningar flitigt som ett informationsbärande dokument. En övergång till att enbart använda 3D-modellen som informationsbärare noterades endast på ett utav företagen men nämndes på ett par andra.Papperslöst arbete verkar vara på frammarsch trots att vissa specifika moment fortfarande utförs på papper. Det noterades även att digitala system används för lagring och hantering av produktrelaterad information hos alla de studerade företagen.Det som ansetts värt att implementera i universitets obligatoriska kurser efter genomförd studie är främst ökad användning av PDM/PLM-system, introduktion av 3D-måttsättning samt utnyttjande av 3D-modellen vid tillverkning.

[pt] Esta tese investiga a ação do designer que atua em contextos sociais de conflito e marginalizados para promover e potenciar processos locais de Inovação Social através de experiências participativas e da estratégia de Design. Por isto, em primeiro lugar, foi desenvolvida uma revisão teórica com relação ao âmbito da contribuição social do Design, às abordagens e práticas mais conhecidas e ao contexto selecionado. Este momento foi preparatório para a fase subsequente de pesquisa que consistiu na implementação de um projeto de Design participativo em uma favela carioca em colaboração com uma ONG local. Ao longo da pesquisa de campo foram coletados dados usando como estratégia a observação participante. Em seguida, os dados foram analisados, sendo identificadas duas macro categorias de investigação, que são fundamentais para o tipo de ação de Design considerada. Trata-se do tempo e dos parceiros de projetos e interesses locais. Ambas foram depois verificadas, compreendidas e detalhadas através de entrevistas com designers e de uma nova fase de revisão teórica. Tudo isso permitiu chegar aos resultados de pesquisa: foram levantadas duas questões que podem influenciar o processo de Design, obstaculizá-lo ou até impedi-lo. Em primeiro lugar, o tempo apresentou-se com um elemento determinante no desenvolvimento de um projeto, capaz de favorecê-lo ou obstaculizá-lo. De fato, podem ocorrer divergências temporais entre o designer e o processo de Design, o contexto e os parceiros de projeto. Em segundo lugar surgiu a influência das forças contextuais exercidas pelos atores locais - e baseadas em interesses e agendas internas - sobre as ações do designer e a sua relação com a estrutura da rede de projeto. Os resultados de pesquisa sugerem que: (1) os fatores contextuais podem influenciar o processo de Design no desenvolvimento de projetos participativos que visam promover processos locais de Inovação Social; (2) a ação do designer em experiências participativas que visam a Inovação Social pode se beneficiar de abordagens que consideram os fatores contextuais; (3) as metodologias e ferramentas desenvolvidas até então para a atuação do designer no âmbito social não são suficientes para a ação. Por fim, a partir disso, a tese promove uma reflexão sobre a proposta de um Design social eficaz e a atual formação em Design neste âmbito. / [en] The thesis investigates the designer s action in conflict and marginalized social contexts aimed at promoting and enhancing local Social Innovation processes through participatory experiences and the Design strategy. Firstly, a theoretical review of the social contribution of Design, of the best-known approaches and practices, and of the selected context was developed. This moment had been preparatory for a subsequent phase of applied research that occurred with the implementation of a participatory Design project inside a Rio de Janeiro slum in collaboration with a local NGO. During field research data were collected through participatory observation. Their later analysis led to identify two key research macro-categories - time, and Design partners and local interests – that were verified and better understood through some interviews with designers and a new phase of theoretical review. All this led to research results: two main issues that may influence, impede or hinder the development of this kind of project were identified. Firstly, time appeared as a fundamental element in project development, able to promote or prevent it. In fact, temporal divergences between the designer and the Design process, between the context and the Design partners may occur. Secondly, the influence of the forces exerted by local actors - and based on interests and inner agendas - on the designer s actions emerged as well as its relation to the project network structure. Research results indicate that: (1) contextual factors may influence the Design process in participatory projects aiming at promoting local Social Innovation processes; (2) the designer s action in participatory experiences may benefit of approaches that consider contextual factors; (3) the methodologies and tools that have been developed to support designer s work in the social field are not enough for action. Finally, this thesis promotes a reflection about the widespread idea of an efficient Social Design practice and about Design education in this area.

本個案分析以奇異塑膠台灣子公司為例，說明在面對各跨國公司區域整合紛紛將將區域總公司設在中國的趨勢，台灣產業外移，奇異塑膠台灣子公司如何避免被邊緣化的威脅？ 說明台灣在2000年初、電子組裝產業由OEM 轉型為ODM，及雖然生產線外移但是產業仍將研發連同規格制定仍舊保留在台灣。而奇異塑膠台灣的子公司經理人如何發揮他的創業家精神，利用這些規格制定留台灣優勢的因素、還有他的敏銳的觀察力發現電子產業的國際與大中華區域之間的價值鏈，善用他與總公司與姊妹公司的良好關係兜售他的創意、取得母公司的支持資源、而培養奇異塑膠台灣子公司在電子組裝產業獨特的能力，進而對在中國的姊妹子公司做出貢獻。而這ㄧ連串的主導活動奇異塑膠台灣子公司不但沒有被邊緣化，反而子公司因此轉型，子公司經理人運用他的創意制定“台商規格制定的生意的平台“使子公司的地位在電子產業處於更重要的策略角色，組織不但未被縮編、還因此增加人員、且獲得總公司的認可，更將重要的電子產業的全球角色成員編列在台灣及ㄧ系列的獨特資源。 筆者也將此個案與歷年的文獻做比對，讓個案更有學理的基礎，可以有信心的用本文作為跨國公司在台灣的子公司做為發展的參考及勉勵，並且個案所述的價值鏈及台商規格制定的生意的平台是可以套用在任何國籍或跨區域需要規格制定的產業上。希望這個成功的模式可以幫助別人。 / This case study uses GE Plastic as an example to illustrate how a Taiwanese branch prevailed when facing the global trend that international corporations, including Taiwanese firms, restructured their district headquarters to mainland China. Taiwan GE Plastic general manager leveraged Taiwan’s unique advantages on product specifications to gain strategic importance and supports from its global and regional headquarter. This manager realized several facts: first, although Taiwan moved its manufacturing components to mainland China. Taiwan kept its designing capabilities in-house; second. Greater China needs Taiwan’s capabilities to complete the value chain and generate profits; third, she maintained favorable relationships with the global headquarter and China regional headquarter. In lights of these facts, she sold an innovative concept to the global headquarter and attained resources to create a platform that kept Taiwan GE plastic relevant. This “speciation-dictating” platform enabled Taiwan GE Plastic to dominate its industry and contribute enormously to its sibling, the China branch. Not only wasn’t it marginalized, Taiwan GE Plastic placed itself in a key strategic position and gained recognition from its mother headquarter. This platform is not bounded by a particular industry and can be used in many other domains. Practitioners from other industries in Taiwan may gain insightful implications from this case and reposition their Taiwan branches in a vantage point.

In this knowledge economy, organizations are leveraging their competence through the knowledge they possess. Managing knowledge will potentially retain the competence held by the organization if knowledge generated across its projects and units is captured, structured and reused. Even though many tools and techniques are proposed in the literature to support these activities, their adoption in industry has been meagre. This may be due to development of tools without basing them on substantial and careful descriptive studies. This raises the following research issues: the knowledge processes and knowledge sources available in organizations and their characteristics need to be understood better. To address these gaps, following objectives are addressed in this research: ♦ To understand the specific needs and capability of the organization for capture and reuse of product development knowledge and ♦ To evaluate various alternative supports for capture and structure of relevant, evolving product development knowledge for reuse. To address these objectives, two observational studies were conducted in the organizations. To get a broader picture about the knowledge processes occurring in the organization, a KRIT model is proposed which is an acronym for Knowledge of solutions-Requirements-Interactions-Tasks, in which interactions of the designers with people and tools play the central role in processing knowledge during design. The KRIT model is validated through the demonstration of the existence of its nodes and links. From the observations it has been found that interactions ‘designer working with computer’, ‘two designers working with a computer’ and ‘two designers interacting with each other’ are most frequently occurred, and occupied most of the time during designing. Any tools to support knowledge capture and reuse should support these interactions such that capture and reuse can be intuitive and in-built in a natural way into a designer’s work habits. It is emphasized that there is a substantial need to increase the percentage of time spent by designers on capturing knowledge during the design process. This increase in time would lead to decrease in a designers’ time spent on knowledge acquisition and dissemination provided designers are capturing reusable knowledge. To answer capture and reuse of knowledge in detail in the observational studies, a new taxonomy of knowledge is proposed. By linking the representations of argumentation, designer’s activities, and the artefact being designed, we argued that the expressiveness of this taxonomy is high compared to the others proposed in the literature. The taxonomy has three broad categories of knowledge: topics, classes, and activities. Based on the definitions of the factors used in the taxonomy and the analysis of the protocols, the factors in each group under each category are argued to be mutually exclusive. In order to study the links between the proposed categories and factors in the taxonomy of knowledge, a method for converting the questions and answers (from the protocol data) into a generic format is framed. The taxonomy is validated comprehensively, and is able to cover various stages of design. Most of the designers’ time was spent working with a CAD package, in which most of the kinds of knowledge mentioned in the proposed taxonomy of knowledge was neither captured not reused. The important observations noted by comparing the knowledge captured in the preliminary study and the main study are as follows: Compared to the preliminary study, process related information and knowledge are captured higher in the main study. In the main study behavioural related content is captured more; whereas in the preliminary study structural content is captured more. The factors organization, usage, maintenance and sales captured in the preliminary study are not at all captured in the main study. In order to assess the usefulness of the knowledge captured, the kinds of knowledge needs of designers were compared with the kinds of knowledge captured. The important observations about the knowledge needs are: Irrespective of the design stages, in almost 50% of the questions, designers interacted with others to know about old issues or proposals in both the studies. A designer’s time for designing would benefit considerably if the answers for these 50% of the old questions were captured and made available for retrieval in formal documents. In both the studies, proposals based questions played a vital role in the questions analyzed. It shows that considerable proportion of time was spent by the designers on validating, by asking questions, the answers known to them. In contrast to the preliminary study, the designers’ needs for process-related information or knowledge were much higher than that for product-related information or knowledge. Comparing the generic questions obtained from the knowledge needs and knowledge captured reveals that only 14% and 26% with product related content and only 10% and 11.3% of the process based content asked by designers during designing were captured in the preliminary and the main study. These results show that there is a mismatch between knowledge captured and knowledge needed by the designers. This may be one of the primary reasons for the poor usage of documents in the organization. The generic questions generated from the questions asked by the designers and various documents will act as a guideline to the designers for what knowledge and information should and should not to be captured. Due to restrictions in the observations, a questionnaire survey was conducted to achieve the objective to collect 10% of total number of employees’ perspectives about the issues considered in this research. The important observations from the analyses of the collected questionnaire are: Designers’ perceive all types of interactions as important and frequent for information generation and sharing. These results are contradictory to the personal observations in which only interactions ‘designer working with computer’ and ‘two designers working with a computer’ occurred frequently. This shows that designers are unable to identify the kinds of interaction which they perform in their daily activities. Due to this, the information processes occurring within these interactions are not perceptible to the designers. Designers perceive that they get the right information at the right time in only 4 or more out of 10 for most of the times. This perception illustrates there is substantial need for the development of support to satisfy the information needs of designers. Analyses of the types of questions reveal that the question asking behavior of the designers is not static; the major share of questions falling under the category ‘question from answer given’ could be interpreted as: designers often do not frame exact questions to fulfil their requirements; they grab the opportunity to take as much as knowledge as possible during an interaction. Analyses of the types of answers reveal that designers gave more inferences on their answers in order to give a better response, which in turn should help reduce the number of questions subsequently asked especially in the protocol coded as ‘new answer’. Two studies have been used to assess the effectiveness of seven tools for supporting knowledge capture and reuse. The important observations from the initial study are: Mobile E-Notes TakerTM is ranked higher because this equipment provides a blend of properties between the paper and computer. These observations stress the importance of features provided for knowledge generation, modification, capture and reuse in the system. The observations from analyzing the three top rated tools (Mobile E-Notes TakerTM, Tablet with viewing facility and Computer with RhinocerosTM CAD package) to understand influence of these tools on knowledge capture and reuse during conceptual designing are: The differences observed in the percentage of capture between the usage of the three tools demonstrate that tools have an influence on the knowledge capture activity. Even though none of the three tools capture adequate knowledge during designing, Mobile e-Notes TakerTM seems to be the best tool for capture compared to the other two tools, both in the original and redesign experiments. These results suggest that some other mechanisms should be added to these tools so that their effectiveness of capturing could be increased. One mechanism is to incorporate the proposed KRIT model and the taxonomy of knowledge during designing. This integration will be one of the good mechanisms to aid knowledge capture and reuse, because the knowledge capture will occur along with the knowledge creation process. We believe that through this integration the purpose to enhance the knowledge capture and reuse during the design process will be achieved.