Petre, Marian
(2004).
How expert engineering teams use disciplines of innovation.
Design Studies, 25(5),
pp. 477–493.
Abstract
Innovation happens deliberately more often than it does by inspiration. This paper describes disciplines applied by effective multi-disciplinary engineering firms in nurturing innovation in order to produce intellectual property in a variety of domains, from telecommunications to medical instruments. The report arises from a series of in situ observations and interviews in 12 engineering consultancies in the UK and US over 2 years. It describes strategies that expert designers use to ‘get out of the box’ of familiar thinking, to identify gaps in existing products, and to go beyond ‘satisficing’. It describes the supportive engineering culture in which these strategies are embedded. Finally, it identifies the characteristics which distinguish the highest-performing teams.
| Item Type: |
Journal Article
|
| Copyright Holders: |
2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd. |
| ISSN: |
0142-694X |
| Funders: |
EPSRC grant GR/J48689 (Facilitating Communication across Domains of Engineering),, EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship AF/98/0597. |
| Extra Information: |
Design Studies Award for Best Paper in 2004 |
| Keywords: |
engineering design; expertise; design studies; innovation; empirical studies |
| Academic Unit/Department: |
Mathematics, Computing and Technology > Computing |
| Interdisciplinary Research Centre: |
Centre for Research in Computing (CRC) |
| Item ID: |
3360 |
| Depositing User: |
Marian Petre
|
| Date Deposited: |
04 Jul 2006 |
| Last Modified: |
10 Aug 2011 16:01 |
| URI: |
http://oro.open.ac.uk/id/eprint/3360 |
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