Visual Management (VM) supporting collaborative practices in infrastructure engineering design

B Pedó, L Koskela, P Tzortzopoulos, A Tezel, S Robinson

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

Managing the design of complex engineering systems requires an organisational structure and an information system to support collaboration among all stakeholders. Technological developments in information management have the potential to facilitate interactions across physical boundaries, even more during the Covid-19 pandemic. Visual Management (VM) is an information management strategy, as well as a means for communication between individuals, supporting collaborative work. However, there is a lack of effective understanding of how digital VM can support infrastructure engineering design. The adoption of digital collaborative VM in the context addressed is new, under rapid evolution, and there is limited understanding of how the users embrace VM while interacting with it. The aim of the paper is to explore the adoption of VM, focusing on digital whiteboards, to support collaborative practices in design processes. The ongoing investigation is carried out in collaboration with an infrastructure design and consultancy company, and follows the action research approach. The VM effectiveness was investigated by analysing the whiteboards applicability to diverse functions and comparing digital and manual implementations. Initial findings include understanding digital whiteboards as a means for collaboration among individuals with different perceptions to establish a common point of view, as it allows the information to be transferred across time and space, identifies abnormalities, and supports problem-solving. By creating a common ground, it has the potential to support complex and emergent interactions in the collaborative space.
Original languageEnglish
Article number052012
Number of pages11
JournalIOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science
Volume1101
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the Innovate UK and the company for the support in this investigation, as well as acknowledge the support received from UKRI through Innovate UK and Knowledge Transfer Partnership programme.

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