Capturing and assessing formal interaction at task level in product development

Concurrent engineering (CE) makes high demands on a company's information management and communication structure. Though the appropriate availability of information is known to be crucial for carrying out a task, daily work in product development is strongly affected by delays and hindrances due to communication problems resulting from the not readily available information. This paper presents a methodology, named formal interaction analysis (FIA), aiming at optimising the availability of information by creating awareness about existing problems and potentials and providing decision support for its improvement. The methodology addresses process capture and analysis in terms of tasks, their information needs and the communication means and patterns used to satisfy these needs. The paper outlines related approaches and their deficits, design factors In process design and embeds the methodology in an overall process design approach. An interaction meta model is presented and the single steps of a formal interaction analysis are explained. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.