New representation techniques for designing in a systemic perspective

This article will emphasise the relevance of issues in the design activity and outline the main methodological problems to be addressed, and provide an overview of different methods and tools used in previous research projects and teaching activities.

Abstract

Global production is challenging industrial production to generate solutions that adequate global production to a local systemic conditions. In some case the challenge consists in producing highly individualised and localised solutions, which require new forms of cooperation with local actors, including local service providers and final users. In some case the level of involvement requested to the new actors is high, they can therefore be considered as co-workers in the production of the final solution and the overall view of the production system should be extended to include them as co-producers.