Work domain analysis for enhancing collaborations: a study of the management of microsystems design

Abstract

Collaboration is an important process that enables organisations to achieve goals or solve problems and, in design processes, is an important factor for accomplishing interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary tasks. An understanding of the functional configuration of organisations could therefore offer a useful insight into collaborations of designers. This study makes use of work domain analysis (WDA) to analyse the management of design by organisations within the microsystems technology (MST) domain. The WDA considers the functional configuration of MST companies in terms of management constraints and boundaries. This study also makes use of the WDA to suggest ways of establishing collaborative design and enhancing collaboration between organisations.

Practitioner Summary: The results of this methodical analysis offer useful insights for managing design functions. This study also presents recommendations for enhancing collaboration in organisations. The ability to manage and collaborate in design functions is valuable for improving the productivity, cost-effectiveness and time-to-market systems.

Keywords:

• work domain analysis
• cognitive work analysis
• collaborative working
• organisational design

Acknowledgement

The author would like to acknowledge the valuable contributions, comments and encouragements of Dr Jeffery Alcock and Prof. Ashutosh Tiwari during the preparation of this article. The useful feedbacks provided by the anonymous reviewers are also acknowledged and appreciated.