Towards effective design coordination: A questionnaire survey

The design of medium- and large-sized projects is an iterative multi-disciplinary process often challenged by a tight budget and limited time. A quality design is highly dependent upon effective coordination among the diverse teams involved in the process. With the current fast pace of technological advances, design coordination becomes an essential element of success particularly within the prevailing market pressures on design firms to downsize, restructure operations, and work more productively and cost effectively. Despite its importance, however, coordination is neither simple nor error free, and has traditionally been applied through manual procedures that are slow and costly. As a step towards effective design coordination, this paper presents the results of a questionnaire survey conducted among 12 leading Canadian design firms. The survey elicited the manner by which expert designers prevent mistakes, detect mismatches, and effectively communicate design changes. Accordingly, solutions to some coordination-related problems have been presented and areas of potential improvement to the design process identified. A suggested coordination scheme has been presented and common interrelationships within the design development process have been explicated. Recommendations toward a more efficient design process have been presented.