Computer support for cooperative teams: applications in concurrent engineering

The cooperative team, a key concept in concurrent engineering, is also a symbol of large-scale organisational changes that have swept through industry in the western hemisphere in recent years. The old multi-layer hierarchies are being modified, if not abandoned, in favour of team-based organisational design. In parallel with these changes a new class of IT systems has emerged, popularly termed groupware. Based on the networked PC environment, groupware models the user as a cooperating group, not as an individual working in isolation. Recognising that the nature of workgroup cooperation will vary in different workplace scenarios, technology designers have developed a wide range of groupware tools. This paper surveys these tools and assesses their usefulness in the context of concurrent engineering methods