Ways of Increasing Synergy in Engineering Design Teamwork

The proposed paper is focused on the problems of reducing losses of resources at the start-up of new automated factories caused by human shortcomings in teamwork activities. The basis for research is a unique database of empirical studies of human faults and mistakes at the design of factory automation systems collected since 2006. It is shown that the most suitable tool for teamwork analysis is the Dependencies Structural Matrixes (DSM) system that allows visualizing of the complexity of the synergy relations between all team members on the basis of the frequency and amount of information interchange. The mathematical treatment of DSM matrixes enables us to form the most capable teams and to schedule their activities. The proposed approach may be easily connected to the previous research on the development of adaptive tools for engineering design and quality management.