Acceptance and Divergence from Engineering Design Procedures Implicating Knowledge Flow

When developing procedures such as tools, methods and frameworks to support the development of new products, one of the challenges is ensuring their successful implementation. This paper describes a study of the development and use of such design-procedures with primary focus on the new product development process-model, its supporting methods and handling of knowledge. Semi-structured interviews with 20 participants have been carried out to understand the use of procedures. All the interviews were conducted in a company, which develops large complex equipment for oil rigs. The findings suggest that a complex understanding of procedures and reasons for divergence needs to be adopted, where implicit as well as explicit procedures are recognised and managed. Three distinct types of implicit procedures were uncovered through the study: 1) historical implicit procedures; 2) social interpretations of explicit procedures and; 3) implicit procedures supporting needs that are not catered for by the explicit procedures. In this understanding, a procedure can be any kind of method, tool or framework used to support design engineers. Furthermore, the study discusses a variety of recommended actions, depending on the type of procedure and the reason for non-conformance. Recommendations for corrective actions are proposed and feedback from managers directly involved in developing and applying the procedures are collected, to evaluate them.