Information flows in networked engineering design projects

Complex engineering design projects need to manage simultaneously multiple information flows across design activities associated with different areas of the design process. Previous research on this area has mostly focused on either analysing the “required information flows” through activity networks at the project level or in studying the social networks that deliver the “actual information flow”. In this paper we propose and empirically test a model and method that integrates both social and activity networks into one compact representation, allowing to compare actual and required information flows between design spaces, and to assess the influence that these misalignments could have on the performance of engineering design projects.