Collaborative Design

Abstract

Global cooperation is a reality for most engineering design teams today, and even though the core group is co-located, they are forced to cooperate with subcontractors or experts with complementary knowledge and skills. The design process can be seen as an integration of a technical, cognitive and social process, and such process is clearly multidisciplinary. This review presents research challenges and emerging directions for future research and focuses on interpersonal communication in collaborative design—small teams of interdisciplinary stakeholders who work jointly toward a common goal that would not otherwise be accomplished by the individual participants themselves.