VOSS-Collaborative Research: Evolution of Virtualized Design Processes in Project-Based Design Organizations

经济竞争力依赖于创新和数字化工具、服务和数据表示。 这些创新是组织保持有效性所必需的。 设计师和设计经理通过整合不同类型的数字流程能力和资源，引导数字化设计能力的发展。这种能力还可以帮助优化复杂的系统（例如，智能电网、普及医疗保健）。基于组织和进化理论，本项目研究组织过程中的变化，因为它们包含创新的虚拟元素。 它应用一个过程建模框架来探索产生变化模式的潜在机制，并结合进化遗传学理论使用计算工具来分析组织过程中的纵向变化，以整合虚拟化创新。 设计过程的生成结构元素（例如，基因型）产生表面水平的设计程序和变化（例如，表型）。过程被表示为类似于生物基因及其翻译的蛋白质产物的序列。而类似于DNA碱基对及其相应氨基酸的元件的组合捕获了设计活动的基本特征。 这个新的词汇表帮助我们从结构上描述了基本的设计任务元素及其在设计任务实例中的变化。这项研究推进了对数字能力如何改变组织流程的理论理解。 它显示了突变是如何出现的，以及过程如何随着时间的推移而变化。 它确定了将数字能力嵌入流程的策略，并探讨了复杂性的影响。 它通过描述数字化过程并对基于事件序列的过程数据进行比较，分层，结构分析来推进仪器，方法和分析技术。 它通过对汽车、芯片和建筑设计的系统研究，提供了设计过程中微观和中观层面变化的纵向数据。 遗传学研究用于根据进化模型和基于代理的模拟来评估设计，并确定随着时间的推移将数字能力整合到设计过程中的模式。

Economic competitiveness relies upon innovation and digitized tools, services and data representation. These innovations are required for organizations to remain effective. Designers and design managers guide the evolution of digitally enabled design capabilities by integrating different types of digital process capabilities and resources. Such capabilities can also help optimize complex systems (e.g., smart grid, pervasive healthcare). Building on organizational and evolutionary theory, this project studies changes in organizational processes as they incorporate innovative virtual elements. It applies a process modeling framework to explore underlying mechanisms that generate patterns of change, and uses computational tools in conjunction with theories of evolutionary genetics to analyze longitudinal changes in organizational processes for integrating virtualized innovations. Generative structural elements of design processes (e.g., genotypes) give birth to surface-level design routines and variations (e.g., phenotypes) over time. Processes are represented as sequences akin to biological genes and their translated protein products. while combinations of elements akin to DNA base pairs and their corresponding amino acids capture essential traits of design activity. This new vocabulary helps us delineate structurally the fundamental design task elements and their variation across design task instances.The study advances theoretical understanding of how digital capabilities alter organizational processes. It shows how mutations emerge and how processes change over time. It identifies strategies for embedding digital capabilities into processes, and explores the impact of complexity. It advances instrumentation, methodology and analytical techniques by describing digitally-enabled processes and performing comparative, hierarchical, structural-analytical analyses of event-sequence-based process data. It provides longitudinal data on the micro- and meso-level changes in design processes from systematic studies of design for cars, chips and buildings. Genetics research is used to evaluate design in light of evolutionary models and agent-based simulations and to identify patterns of integration of digital capabilities into design processes over time.