Engineering Design Communication is the main tributary for the sharing of information, knowledge & insights, and is fundamental to engineering work. Engineers spend a significant portion of their day communicating as they ‘fill in the gaps’ left by formal documentation and processes. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that there is much extant literature on this subject. The majority has been descriptive with little prescriptive research involving the introduction of either a tool or process. To begin to address this, previous work reports a Social Media framework to support Engineering Design Communication and this paper builds upon this previous work through the instantiation of the framework within a custom-built Social Media tool hereto referred to as PartBook. This has been prescribed within an eleven week race car design project. The study addresses the validation of the requirements that underpin the Social Media framework as well as investigating the impact the tool has/may have on engineering work, engineering artefacts and engineering project management. In order to do so, data has been captured through user activity, system usability, questionnaire, semi-structured interview and informal feedback.

Engineering Design Communication (EDC) is fundamental to almost all Engineering Design activities as it provides the ability for knowledge and information to be shared between engineers. It is part of ‘what we do’. This communication contains a great deal of rationale relating to the evolution of Product Development and is essential for understanding ‘why the product is the way it is’. The need to support EDC is becoming more important due to the fact that Product Development is becoming more distributed, multi-disciplinary and involving greater re-use of past designs. With the advent of Social Media (SM), it is argued that there is the technical capability to provide more effective support for EDC within a computer-mediated environment. In order to explore this potential, this paper defines the requirements for the effective support of EDC through an extensive review of the literature. It then discusses the suitability of a SM approach and then presents the theoretical foundations of a SM framework to support EDC.

This article deals with the organization and management of the computer files handled by mechanical engineers on their personal computers. In engineering organizations, a wide variety of electronic files (documents) are necessary to support both business processes and the activities of design and manufacture. Whilst a large number of files and hence information is formally archived, a significant amount of additional information and knowledge resides in electronic files on personal computers. The widespread use of these personal information stores means that all information is retained. However, its reuse is problematic for all but the individual as a result of the naming and organization of the files. To begin to address this issue, a study of the use and current practices for managing personal electronic files is described. The study considers the fundamental classes of files handled by engineers and analyses the organization of these files across the personal computers of 40 participants. The study involves a questionnaire and an electronic audit. The results of these qualitative and quantitative elements are used to elicit an understanding of the practices and requirements of engineers for managing personal electronic files. A potential scheme for naming and organizing personal electronic files is discussed as one possible way to satisfy these requirements. The aim of the scheme is to balance the personal nature of data storage with the need for personal records to be shared with others to support knowledge reuse in engineering organizations. Although this article is concerned with mechanical engineers, the issues dealt with are relevant to knowledge-based industries and, in particular, teams of knowledge workers.