INFORMATION REQUESTS AND CONSEQUENT SEARCHES IN AEROSPACE DESIGN

Making requests for information and undertaking searches to satisfy them is an essential part of the design process. The way in which engineering designers make requests and how they interact with external information repositories is explored by conducting empirical research in a large industrial aerospace company. Coding schemes for the context of a request and the sources used by engineering designers were developed, however for the type of a request a previously published coding scheme was adopted. Findings show that the context and type of a request significantly influence which access route is selected to answer a request.