ITR: Transformation of Engineering Design: Digitization and Global Distribution of Engineering Work

ITR：工程设计的转型：工程工作的数字化和全球分布

• 批准号: 0427173
• 负责人: Stephen Barley
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-09-15 至 2010-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0427173&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ITR; Transformation; Engineering; Design; Digitization

This research project is jointly funded by the Information Technology Research program, the Digital Society and Technologies program, and the Office of International Science & Engineering. It will investigate how information technologies that employ sophisticated mathematical techniques are reshaping technical work through a process conceptualized as intensification of abstraction. Intensification of abstraction centers on the replacement of the physical by the virtual, i.e., the manipulation of symbols that represent and substitute for objects. The study will be conducted in the context of automotive engineering design in partnership with General Motors Corporation. It will focus on the way in which information technology tools that employ techniques like finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics are bringing about changes in how engineers think about and do engineering, changes in organizational structures and processes, changes in engineering knowledge, and changes in the division of engineering labor. It will also trace how these technologies alter relationships between automotive firms and their suppliers and pave the way for outsourcing engineering work. The research will entail detailed ethnographic observations of GM engineers in both US and India, supplemented with interviews in firms that manufacture analysis tools and the researchers who develop the techniques on which the tools are based. To date little systematic research has examined the socio-technical dynamics of these kinds of changes. The intellectual merit of this study lies in its potential to alter how studies of technology and work understand the role of information technologies in a knowledge economy. Since technical and professional occupations now represent the largest sector of the American workforce, intensification of abstraction may transform modern knowledge work as significantly as automation did production and clerical work in the 20th Century. The broader impacts include implications for the U.S. economy and the nation's place in the international division of labor.

该研究项目由信息技术研究计划、数字社会和技术计划以及国际科学与工程办公室联合资助。它将研究采用复杂数学技术的信息技术如何通过概念化为强化抽象的过程重塑技术工作。 抽象的强化集中在用虚拟代替物理，即对代表和替代对象的符号的操纵。 该研究将与通用汽车公司合作在汽车工程设计背景下进行。 它将重点关注采用有限元分析和计算流体动力学等技术的信息技术工具如何改变工程师思考和进行工程的方式、组织结构和流程的变化、工程知识的变化以及工程知识的变化。工程劳动分工。 它还将追踪这些技术如何改变汽车公司及其供应商之间的关系，并为外包工程工作铺平道路。 该研究将对美国和印度的通用汽车工程师进行详细的人种学观察，并辅以对制造分析工具的公司和开发这些工具所基于的技术的研究人员的采访。 迄今为止，很少有系统的研究探讨了此类变化的社会技术动态。 这项研究的智力价值在于它有可能改变对技术和工作的研究如何理解信息技术在知识经济中的作用。 由于技术和专业职业现在代表了美国劳动力的最大部分，抽象的强化可能会像自动化改变 20 世纪的生产和文书工作一样显着地改变现代知识工作。 更广泛的影响包括对美国经济和美国在国际分工中的地位的影响。