SOCIAL SHAPING OF COGNITIVE PROCESSES
Theories, methods, and norms used by
design departments for industrial projects,
a comparison between France and Germany
1.
Jean-Pierre Poitou
The present paper is nothing more than a tentative outline of a research project. Through several discussions with my German colleagues, Irmela Gorges, Hans Niemitz and Reiner Oelsner I have been introduced to the program launched by Pr. König at Berlin Technical University2. I am indebted to them for having brought to my attention
the large body of knowledge known in German speaking countries as
Konstruktionsmethodik or Konstruktionssystematik, respectively design
methodology and systematic design.
Konstruktionsmethodik3 appeared to me as a fascinating social
construction, or rather a social device, as I use to say - aimed at shaping the mental processes of the designer, a system, or rather a series of systematic attempts for which - as far as I can see - no equivalent could be found in French design offices and engineering schools.
In the present paper I shall first state briefly why Konstruktionsmethodik (hereafter shortened KM) aroused my interest, as a cognitive psychologist with a strong inclination for the sociology of knowledge. I will then present my understanding of the basic training and methods for designers in French design offices, as I see them presently on the basis of my former studies. It will be apparent that my information in that respect is wanting for more readings and enquiries in the history of the education of French engineers and in the actual practices prevailing in
1 article paru dans : J. Perrin & D. Vinck (Eds) (1996). The role of design in the shaping of technology (pp. 131-154). Bruxelles : European Commission Directorate - General Science, Research and Development.
2Forschergruppe Konstruktionshandeln. Nichttechnische Komponenten des Konstruktionshandelns bei zunehmendem CAD-Einsatz.
3The notions of Konstruktionmethode and of Konstruktionssystematik are often used as synomymes in the litterature...”(Rutz, 1985, p.11)
the French design offices. In a third part, I will briefly sketch out the history of KM on the basis of what I learnt from Niemitz and Paulsen (1992), Oelsner (1992), and Rutz (1985), in order to try to analyse KM as a social construction, and assess its social efficiency in shaping the processes of technical discovery and industrial development. Finally, I shall outline the aims and means of a comparative research project between France and Germany, relative to theories, methods, norms used by design departments for industrial projects.
1- THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND THE DESIGNERS
I favor an environmental, or rather an ecological (Gibson, 1979) approach to mental activity.
“The possibilities of the environment and the way of life of the animal
go together inseparably. The environment constrains what the animal can do, and the concept of a niche in ecology reflects this fact. Within limits, the human animal can alter the affordances of the environment but is still the creature of his or her situation” (Gibson, 1979, p. 39). According to
Gibson, the animal and its environment are mutually adjusted, so that the animal perceives adequately whatever the environment afford for its survival. Gibsons points out that upon his theory of perception, a theory of knowledge can be build : “The ecological theory of direct perception
cannot stand by itself. It implies a new theory of cognition in general...Perceiving is the simplest and best kind of knowing. But there are other kinds, of which three were suggested. Knowing by means of instruments extends perceiving into the realm of the very distant and the very small ; it also allows for metric knowledge. Knowing by means of language makes knowing explicit instead of tacit. Language permits descriptions and pools the accumulated observations of our ancestors. Knowing by means of pictures also extends perceiving and consolidates the gains of perceiving” (Gibson, 1979, p.263). The niche of the human
animal is artefactual, man-made, and shaped so as to convey still more knowledge. The human environment is filled up with displays : “A
display, ...is a surface that has been shaped or processed so as to exhibit information for more than just surface itself...images, pictures, and writ-on surfaces afford a special kind of knowledge that I call mediated or indirect, knowledge at second hand...(they) permit...storage of information and the accumulation of information in storehouses, in short, civilization.” (Gibson, 1979, p.42).
The notion of “intellectual object” suggested by Janet (1935) refers to any human artefact, which as such incorporates vast amounts of knowledge accumulated through generations and coordinated through the co-operation of many people. In Gibons’ terms, an “intellectual object”
is a “display” of knowledge for whoever uses it. It can also be said to provide an “affordance” of knowledge.
These notions, which I will not here further elaborateupon, give the general theoritecal background to the hypothesis that : not only the content of thinking is socially shaped (something I guess, most people would admit), but also that the very cognitive processes are socially and hence historically determined.
Before presenting the reasons why the design office is a convenient place for testing this hypothesis, let me point out that, when applied to the designers, it states that not only the nature of the problems and the type of products they deal with, but their very mental activity, their thinking processes are socially determined. With respect to the problem addressed to in this seminar, it states rather radically that technology is socially shaped because the intimate cognitive processes of the designers are actually social constructions.
This reasoning goes on lines not very different - though maybe going a little further away - from the trends set up by Knorr-Cetina (1991) or Latour & Woolgar (1979), to name a few. To state it briefly, the present approach is constructivist, contextualist and situativist (Norman, 1993) : knowledge is imbedded in the work-place, which is an organised environment, socially shaped in order to “display” cognitive “affordances” and technical instructions for using of the “intellectual objects”, i.e. the tools needed to carry out the task In such an “intelligent” environment, the only requirement from the actor is to hold a general competence in the management of knowledge (Poitou, 1993): how to pick up cues for the selection of the appropriate information, where to find it, how long to use it, when and where to store it back. Technical methodologies, such as KM, are complex social devices aimed at providing suggestions and/or compulsive instructions for managing the knowledge situated in the environment.
In that respect, the design office is a particularly interesting place where to observe cognitive functioning.
The “brain of the factory” as termed by Louis Renault (Poitou, 1988) is where creativity, that is the supposedly most individual cognitive process takes place in the firm. However, through the “scientification of technique” (Böhle, 1992, Hirsch-Kreinsen,1993), the basic material of this creativity is largely socialised. Furthermore, industrial creativity is a collective functionning under pressure toward economical goals. These goals are diverse and changing through time : for instance productivity of course, but also sparing valuable raw material, attractiveness for the customer, competitiveness, quality and so on. In many cases, but not always, these goals have prompted efforts to control the cognitive processes of the designers.
In a short study of a case of simultaneous discoveries made by two engineers of two different firms, engaged independently in the parallel pursuit of similar industrial projects, I have shown how the historical circumstances, the firm culture, the vocational training, the professional position and relationships could shape differentially the behavior and the thinking of each of them, down to their style in the application of mathematics (Poitou, 1989).
It would be interesting to conduct such comparisons on a larger scale and in a broader perspective. The graph below illustrates the approach.
German domain 1 French domain
Konstruktionsmethodik Industrial design
Social representations and 2 Social representations and norms of cognitive
processes norms of cognitiveprocesses
Training and 3 Training and
technical practices technical practices
Cognitive process as a 4 Cognitive process as a
social construction social construction
International comparative 5 International comparative
case studies case studies
Psychological invariants ? Let’s assume that
(1) in France there is nothing comparable to KM in Germany. A comparison could be made between designers from each country in order to find evidence of differences in their respective ways of thinking out the problems of their trade.
To that end, one would have first to make clear :
(2) that KM relies on social representations of the designers’ cognitive activity, and inforces norms upon that activity, which do not hold in the French domain ;
(3) that designers are trained and they actually practice their trade in different ways. In Germany, in conformity with KM principles, in France, quite differently ;
It should then be demonstrated that :
(4) the very cognitive processes of the German industrial designers abide to KM principles, or at least to some of them, while nothing of the like could be evidenced in the French domain.
(5) This should be demonstrated through well balanced comparison of design studies of similar products in both countries.
Finally, either an absence of differences between the two domains would be indicative of the existence of cognitive invariants common at least to the cultural background of both countries, or strong procedural differences in cognitive processes would weigh in favor of technical thinking being socially shaped.
2- INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, SOME INDICATIONS FOR A COMPARISON BETWEEN FRANCE AND GERMANY
From what we know already about the development of CAD/CAM in France and Germany, thanks namely to Dr. Gorges’ studies, some indications can be brought to bear upon a prospective comparative history of industrial design training and practices in both countries.
Paradoxically in a country like France, supposedly prone to intellectualism and abstract rational thinking, CAD/CAM was mostly developped in industrial settings, mostly by engineers concerned with manufacturing rather than with technical brilliance, relying more on graphics than on computation (Poitou, 1988), while in Germany, CAD/CAM research was carried out in Universities, and needed more time to get rooted in manufacturing, even though the University Departments concerned with this branch of research had strong connections with industry.
2.1- A FEW HINTS ABOUT DESIGN IN FRANCE
The above comparison fits rather well with the few notions I have to date about the development of design studies and practices in France. 2.1.1- Theoretical background of design training in France
As we shall see later, while in Germany a strong theoretical thinking about machine engineering preceded and accompanied the development of industrial design offices, in France, as far as I can see very little consideration was paid to a possible “science des machines”. The main exception to that observation is Jacques Lafitte, who came after the British, namely Babbage, and German theorists of engines, such as Reuleaux or Bach. Lafitte proposed a descriptive science of machine, or “mécanographie”, and a normative science or “mécanologie”4. While in
4 “Une science descriptive des machines, vouée à l'histoire, à la description, à la classification des machines existantes, et pour laquelle j'ai précedemment proposé le nom de mécanographie. Une
Germany, the machine theorists succeded in stimulating the idea of a systematic conception and design of engines, Lafitte seems to have had very little followers in his own country. Possible explanations for this fact could be found in the importance of drawing in the training of French designers, up to the time of the introduction of CAD/CAM, and to the anti-intellectualism of the French industrialists.
2.1.2- Descriptive geometry : the engineer's language
Booker (1963) showed that in the early 19th century drawing techniques based on Monge's descriptive geometry helped France and several other European continental countries in filling up the technological gap between their industrial potential and Great Britain's.
Descriptive geometry was termed by Monge the « langue nécessaire » for the engineer5, as well as for the designer, the manufacturing engineer and the worker. Although the share of geometry and drawing tended to decrease in engineering schools curricula throughout the 19th century (Lipsmeier, 1971), descriptive geometry was undoubtedly very influential in the technical training and practice of the French, and to a lesser degree of the German engineers (Booker, 1963, Poitou, 1984). Investigations in the history of design offices of French firms convey the impression that drawing and geometry have durably been one of the main ressources of French engineers, at least in the field of mechanical industries, while computing was not much in use6. This impression
should be comforted by further case studies. Quite certainly it ought to be qualified through considerations of branches, firms, time period, and training of engineers. However the slow pace of rationalisation in the French industry gives it some plausibility.
science normative des machines, ou mécanologie, vouée à l'étude des différences qui s'observent entre elles, à l'explication de ces différences, à la recherche des causes et des lois qui les régissent, cette science se posant, en final, le problème même de leur existence; ”(Lafitte, 1932, p.33)
“Mécanologie : a) étude des différences qui s'observent dans les formes, b) étude des différences qui s'observent dans les structures. c) étude des différences qui s'observent dans les fonctionnements; d) étude des différences qui s'observent dans l'organisation générale; e) étude de la genèse de chaque type;” (Lafitte, 1932, p.34).
5 “Cet art a deux objets principaux. Le premier est de représenter avec exactitude, sur des dessins qui n'ont que deux dimensions,les objets qui en ont trois, et qui sont susceptibles de définition rigoureuse. Sous ce point de vue, c'est une langue nécessaire à l'homme de génie qui conçoit un projet, à ceux qui doivent en diriger l'exécution, et enfin aux artistes qui doivent eux-mêmes en exécuter les différentes parties. Le second objet de la géométrie descriptive est de déduire de la description exacte des corps tout ce qui suit nécessairement de leurs formes et de leurs positions respectives. Dans ce sens c'est un moyen de rechercher la vérité...” G. Monge, préambule aux leçons de géométrie descriptive, Séances de l'Ecole Normale, 1799.
6 Fernand Picard, for a long time head of the Design Department at Renault, and responsible for the design of the famous “4CV” car, used to insist upon the importance of drawing : “ideas come to the mind of the engineers who draw : in front of a blank drawing sheet, you got to be inventive, you can’t rely on copying” (Poitou, 1988, p.62).
2.1.3- A belated rationalisation
I shall be careful not to overstate the conclusions of the few cases (the main being Renault) I have directly or indirectly studied of rationalisation in the French industry. I would quite readily say however that because of their malthusianism (Levy-Leboyer, 1974), it took a long time to the French employers to introduce and develop taylorism and fordism in their factories. Here again this has to be qualified : there has been exceptions, Citroën being one of the most brilliant, and unsuccessful as well. Indeed the “méthodes américaines” have been strongly advocated in France. But the French taylorians were engineers trained in highbrow schools rather than employers. Actually, many employers disliked intellectually oriented engineers, and did more willingly resort to self-taught “ingénieurs maison”, because of their greater compliance to the boss’ views7. And not many of them were
willing to pay the price of a thorough modernization of their manufactures.
A consequence of this belated rationalisation is the persistance of rather old fashioned design methods, and poorly organized design offices. A related symptom or another consequence of this slow pace toward mass production - which lasted until after world War II - is to be found in the long-standing independance of the product design office from, and its predominance over job preparation, manufacturing engineering and manufacturing departments8.
2.2. DESIGN IN GERMANY AND THE KONSTRUKTIONMETHODIK
(KM)
I shall first give a brief historical account - borrowed from my German colleagues - of the development of the German methods for the rationalization of design. KM will thus apear as a very consistent effort to build up a social device for the shaping of technical thinking :
7.Louis Renault, himself an autodidact mecanician, is one of the most typical example. F. Picard wrote in his diary the 5th of december 1940 : « Il est cependant décourageant de songer que personne à la tête de cette vaste usine ne s'intéresse vraiment à l'éducation et à l'instruction des cadres...M. Renault, génial primaire, hait la culture. Il ne comprend que le concret et l'immédiat. Tous ceux qui l'entourent ont pris la même déformation quand ils ne l'avaient pas au départ. L'ignorance est élevée à la hauteur d'une institution. On reproche quelquefois à celui-ci d'être trop savant, jamais à celui-là de tout ignorer » (Picard, 1977,p.35). Voir Poitou, 1988, p. .37 sq..
8Pierre Bézier, a French pioneer of CAD/CAM, who worked at Renault's “bureau d'études d'outillage” recalls that : « le bureau d’étude était divisé par une cloison vitrée en deux espaces distincts. D’un côté l’aristocratie concevait et dessinait les véhicules. De l’autre, la roture n’avait à s’occuper que des outillages nécessaires aux ateliers de mécanique et de carrosserie. La séparation n’était pas seulement symbolique ; d’un côté à l’autre, les salaires différaient d’environ vingt pour cent ; la franchir pendant les heures de travail c’était risquer sciemment la mise à la porte ; les formes, les cotes et les tolérances choisies en deçà n’avaient pas à être discutées en-delà » (Bézier, 1982, p. 257).
- KM relies upon social representations of both the cognitive processes of the designer, and the work process of design,
- these social representations are formalized and theorized into a cognitive psychology of the designers,
- KM cognitive psychology is the basis for training methods, through which the future engineer learns to think according to the basic cognitive psychology
- in accordance with KM cognitive psychology of the designer, norms are stated and socially enforced through professional associations and state agencies,
- as a consequence, in offices organized and managed according to KM, engineers trained through KM teaching, and abiding to KM inspired norms, should work according to KM principles.
I will succesively consider these different aspects of KM. KM has everything to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whether it does is a matter of empirical examination, and precisely one of the objects of the research project outlined in the present paper.
2.2.1- Design office in Germany : a historical sketch
From its beginning as a specialized section of the firm, in the middle of the 19th century, up to the end of World War II, the design office enjoyed a predominance over the workshop. The design office was the place where, not without conflict, were decided matters of concern for the manufacturing department, such as the uses and functions of the machines, and for the assembly line, such as the montage times (König et
al., 1988).
The experience of mass production during World War I gave the opportunity to reverse the power relationships in favor of the workshop. Manufacturing took control over design, and production engineers demanded with success a “workshop-controlled design” (Werkstattgerechten Konstruiren).
During the early thirties, manufacturing engineers succeded in organizing design office methods in accordance with the requirements of production. They took care of the training of the designers. They also organized the profession itself, by creating the “Design Group” (Gruppe Konstruktion), which later, in 1937, became the society of German designers and engineers (Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Konstrukteurs-Ingenieure, ADKI). Thus, the manufacturing engineers took charge of the shaping of technology by shaping up the design office. The coming of the Nazis into power brought new, significant and interesting changes. As early as 1934, they oriented the industry towards war production. This introduced a shift in the criteria of production. The main objective became not so much to conceive low cost products, than to use raw
material of low strategic value, and to design light rather than heavy structures. This orientation lead to changes in the relationships between design office and manufacturing department, together with new methods for design, namely the first attempts to develop value analysis.
With the reconstruction after the war, the pendulum swang back in favor of the manufacturing engineers, quite like in the twenties. This situation drew the talented engineers away from the design office, up to the point where in the early sixties, the “design office bottleneck” became a nationwide concern. This gave an impulse to a renewed interest for the design methodology, and the didactics of design work. New training methods were implemented for the designers, both in the GFR and in the GDR. With the leading influence of the society of German engineers (VDI9) the KM was strongly stimulated, together with the research in computer assistance to design. The KM litterature became again quite flourishing in the sixties, apparently without succeding in bridging the gap between design office and manufacturing.
2.2.2- KM and the production rationalization process
The obvious connections of KM with the rationalization process makes a comparative study of French and German design offices quite interesting. As compared with the French situation, the rationalization in Germany seems to have been started if not earlier, at least more resolutely ; greater concern than in France to theorizing, training, and professionnally organizing was given. Furthermore, because of strong political and ideological changes, the process exhibits strongly contrasted phases, which in turn reveal social influences, less visible in France, where designing appear - deceitfully - as something more “natural”.
According to these political and ideological changes, the quasi permanent conflict between design and manufacturing goes through several shifts of power positions. A report10 read at the 1934 VDI meeting, gives a vivid picture of these shifts, which stronglycontrasts with the above quotation from Bézier (see note 7).
9VDI : Verein Deutscher Ingenieure, Union of the German engineers
10“Ja die Nichtachtung der Konstruktiven Arbeit ging stellenweise soweit, dab selbst Männer, die Anspruch darauf machten gehört zu werden, der Industrie allen Erstens den Rat gaben, die Konstruktionsbüros einfach zu schlieben, da alles Übel nur von dort käme und, wie man als Grund anführte, nur durch die neuerungsschüchtigen Konstruteure der ruhige Flub der Fertigung immer wieder gestört würde”. Modersohn, quoted by Niemitz & Paulsen, 1992, p.6. (Indeed, lack of consideration toward designwork came in places to a point where some dared to suggest quite seriously to industry that design offices be closed, for nothing good could from such places where design engineers, their mind blown up with innovation, disturbed constantly the steady flow of production).
These recurring conflicts, through which the intellectual independance of the designer is alternatively expanded or restricted and constrained, are evidence of the social determination not of the cognitive activity itself, but of the space in which it is permitted to develop. The history of the rationalization process shows the rationality of the designer's cognitive processes to be strongly limited and constrained by economical and social conditions, which he, the designer, cannot control. Polanyi11 pointed out that the scientific rationality, while explaining the “operational principle” of a machine, cannot give account of that machine as a technical device. Nor can a “psychology of the inventors” or a “rational methodology of the designer”12 (to quote one of the most brilliant German engineers and theorists of design) account for the actual mental processes, conditioned as they are by economical “rationalization” constraints.
2.2.3- KM : norming industrial creativity
The everlasting conflict between the design office and the shop can be viewed as a result of a constant effort from the manufacturing engineers to shape the creativity of the designers according to their understanding of the requirements of production. As we shall see in the next section, manufacturing engineers managed to be influential in the organizing and the training of the design office personnel.
2.2.3.1- Changes in the criteria of industrial achievement
Furthermore, as the goals assigned to industry changed, in accordance with the objectives of the war preparation, of the war effort or of the post-war reconstruction period, various methods and work organizations were proposed to or imposed upon the activity of the design office.
As noted earlier (see note 9), the design office enjoyed a great independance up to the early twenties. At that time, innovation per se was a value not to be discussed upon, even though it “disturbed the steady flow of production”. However, technical ingenuity as the main goal of industry, was succesively superseded by low production costs and easiness in manufacturing, use of low strategic value raw material, standardisation of design. During the last years of World War II, it even came to a point where creativity was disapproved of, while it was recommended to reuse older studies or part of former designs as much as possible.
Indeed, to ask for workshop oriented design could be considered not as a demotion of industrial creativity, but rather as more exacting demand upon its capabilities of achieving high level innovation under
11“The complete (i.e.. scientiific) knowledge ..of a machine as an object tells us nothing about it as a machine”(Polanyi, 1962, p.330, as quoted by Vincenti, 1990, 209).
strong and complex economical constraints. The goal of design kept unchanged, further criteria were added to the objective of sheer novelty. However, with the introduction of autarcy, the very goals of design were changed. Designers were asked not to look for the best possible solution or performance, nor for the best and easiest product to manufacture. They had to scan all possible raw material, and select whichever would fit the purpose of the study being in wide local supply. And actually new methods resulted from this resorting to ars combinatoria. What was to become value analysis13 on the one hand (Kesselring, 1942, Niemitz & Paulsen, 1992, p.22), and on the other hand, the “Erfa Gruppen”14 or
groups for the exchange of experiences could be considered as a prefiguration of the creativity groups (Niemitz & Paulsen 1992 p.21). Actually, these groups were not at the designers’ level, but rather slightly higher. They brought together heads of departments and some specialists of different firms, who where required to forget about competitiveness. This comforted the idea of design as a collective process, instead of an individual endeavour.
With the deepening of the difficulties resulting from the war after Stalingrad, design tended to be reduced to a purely combinatory game, favoring the re-cycling of former studies, and an extremely high level of standardisation, with the notion of “construction set” design15 (Niemitz & Paulsen 1992 p.23).
2.2.3.2. Changing the cognitive style of the designers
The changes in the goals of production were accompanied not only by the promotion of new tasks and new practices in the design office, but also by the development and the introduction of new cognitive methods for the designers.
13“The design engineers developed methods for quantifiying the saving potential in terms of raw materials ...methods which Kesselring will remember ...when trying to quantify the technical and economical value of a study ( Kesselring, 1942, 321sq., 749sq.). Of significance also is the fact that Wögerbauer, the other famous design theoricist, has been a commissar to substitutive materials” (Niemitz & Paulsen, 1992, p.22).
14“The shortage...of ressources was...a challenge for the design and manufacturing techniques. The State...demanded a rationalisation beyond and above unique and isolated manufacturing (Ludwig, 1979, p. 363), which it enforced through the development of... groups for the exchange of experiences (Erfa-Gruppen) (Knorr, 1938, p. 383). In such groups, heads of departments and specialists could discuss applied problems “while setting aside personal interests as well as those of the firms involved” as told by the armament minister Todt in 1940 (Ludwig, 1979, p. 363). In this way, the State supported the engineers tendency to...“get rid, at least partially of the preponderance of sales concern”(ibid)” (Niemitz & Paulsen 1992 p.21).
15“After 1942 and the defeat in Stalingrad...repetitive design and products standardization were imposed..The State took...emergency measures for the prohibition of studies of spare parts of similar machines, and for imposing instead repetitive studies. In particular, technicians and designers proposed “construction set” systems for machine-tools...and for steam turbines...which still today seem strangely modern”(Niemitz & Paulsen 1992 p.23).
I will consider later on the intellectual sources and the underlying cognitive psychology of KM. Presently should be noted the attempts -whether successful or not - at enforcing new norms upon the thinking of the designers.
The World War I rationalization made it clear that the methods grounded in the designers' empirical knowledge were unfit for the requirements of planned manufacturing. Furthermore, fast cutting machines, lightened structures and new materials demanded more knowledgeable designers (Oelsner, 1992, p.43). The design theorists took advantage of this situation to open a discussion about heuristics in order to promote an “invention doctrine” (Erfindungslehre) grounded in the theoricists' representation of the “rules of design”. These rules were formalized into straightforward mottos such as “use criticism !”, “better check twice” ou “beware of slogans” (Meyer, 1926, p. 20 sq, quoted by Oelsner, 1992, p. 44)., which reminded strongly of the “true/false instructions for designers” written down by the advocates of “workshop-controled design” (Werkstattgerechten Konstruiren). While apparently opposed, both the design theorists and the manufacturing oriented theorists converged on a stereotyping of the designers' thinking, which culminated in the development of “construction set” design16. Finally,
with the shortage of material as well as of able-minded (and able-bodied - see Niemitz & Paulsen, 1992, p. 26) designers, the designer's cognitive activity was restricted to variations as small as possible, or even better to pure replications of already available solutions.
Thus, at the end of the war, the road was paved for combinatory and/or systemic approaches to design, which prevailed in the post-war years over more “psychological” ones (Rutz, 1985).
Hansen (1955) should be considered as the founder of the scientific methodology of design (Konstruktionswissenschaft) relying heavily on the combining of scientific and technical knowledge according to rules under economical constraints (Rutz, 1985, p. 20). Zwicky (1950) and Kesselring (1955) dwelt upon Hansen's tendencies to combinatory design in order to elaborate a global methodology. Zwicky (1950, as quoted by Rutz, 1985, p.21) presents his “morphological method” as an “essentially totalizing research” based upon the exhaustive examination of all possible solutions to the problem under consideration.
16“The enforcement of these rules was facilitated mostly by the “construction set systems”...particularly electro-mechanical sets (for such simple construction elements as switches, cables, which are found on every machine)...The requierement for optimal achievement was restricted for designers to a choice among building elements in the set...Actually, the “instructions for the designer” helped to reduce the pressure from industrial production costs. At the same time, the understanding of the design work in terms of cognitive psychology ...encouraged introspection...in the “continuous design process” (Oelsner, 1992, p.43).
This orientation led rather naturally toward a logical-mathematical approach and a cybernetical approach, where the requirements of the project schedule are translated into basic abstracts functions, to be combined with mechanical junctions, considered as logical operators betwen functions. This (reputedly) purely logical layout is in turn translated into physical inputs and outputs of power, material and information. Finally, building constraints are examined, in order to realize a machine considered as a combination of constructive results (Oelsner, 1992, p.47). It should be noted here that this “black box” approach to the design process has close similarity with the information theory based psychological approaches prevailing during the sixties and seventies.
This approach was also very proper for developing computer aids to design. However, it should not be considered as the exclusive road to CAD. As noted earlier, the development of CAD/CAM in France has been at least as early and effective as in Germany, but relied much more on graphics than on any sort of ars combinatoria.
2.2.4- KM normalization through vocational training and
organizing
During the twenties, the idea of a teaching in design, as a special discipline, was much in debate (Niemitz & Paulsen 1992 p.16). This of course was related to the complexification of the industrial products, but even more so to the leading position attained at by manufacturing engineers through the development of mass production :“In factories and
outside a movement was initiated, in favor of a dialogue between design office and workshop, and of an increased demand for practical training of the designers”.(Niemitz & Paulsen 1992 p.16).
Through the years 1926 and 1927 a series of papers had been published in the journal Maschinenbau about the necessary influence of the manufacturing over the design. As a result, in1928, the Union of German Engineers and its Working Society of German Industrial Engineers17 initiated an inter-firms series of lectures in design in Berlin.
These lectures were attended by some 200 designers from Berlin. This course was to be continued until 1942, at a rate of four sessions a year.
Clearly, the manufacturing engineers were the initiators of this training. They were also influential in the organizing of the designers. Together with the beginning of the design courses, they suggested the foundation of a “design group” as a local section of the ADB, aimed at the training of designers, and the publication of a series in “workshop oriented design”. The founding of the ADKI in order to unite all the
17 Respectively VDI or Verein Deutscher Ingenieure, and ADB or Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Betriebsingenieure;
local design groups created as locals of the ADB did not sever the designers from the supervision of the manufacturing engineers. To the contrary it might be considered that these teaching and organizing efforts were attempts at controlling the shaping of the designers technical thought. It is worth noting that these attempts came from engineers, and - as far as I know - not from the employers themselves. If I am not mistaken in that respect, we have here a similarity which deserves further investigation, between the French taylorism and the German “Rationalisierung”.
2.2.5. KM and ideologies
A quotation from Maass outlines a relationship between design office and workshop in Germany during the twenties exactly opposite to the French situation (see note 7) : “The designers are allowed access to the
workshop only on exceptional and particular occasions, and after having been permitted by the workshop manager. It is under all circumstances strictly forbidden to stay in any workshop with which the design office has no business”. (Niemitz & Paulsen, 1992, p.13). Apparently,
taylorism and fordism fared much better in Germany than in France at that time.
In the latter country, during the mid-thirties, and during the war years, production planning and job scientific management were much debated. In that rather complex controversy (see Poitou, 1988, pp. 89-111) during a conflicting period, planners and organizers took sides, or more precisely engineers in favor of rationalization looked for and found support at the moderate end of the worker's movement and among progressive capitalists, as well as at the extreme right. Or to put it the other way around, the social democrats and the resistantialist wing of the employers on one hand, the conservative employers and the Vichy government on the other hand were concerned with planning and management in order to improve the French economy and production. Obviously in Germany, the nazis have had a strong influence on both the planning and the management of production. Some engineers, whether willingly or not, did adhere to the pseudo-anticapitalist ideology of the nazis18, while the nazis supported those engineers whose views about
management comforted the German preparation for war.
Indeed, giving a historical account of the connections between political and social ideologies and industrial organization is a scientific pursuit interesting in its own right. In that respect I have for instance
18"“he sales executive, gaining more and more influence in the industry under the pure capitalism power...helped this conception (ever increasing mass production) to prevail. Today, as we have luckily overcome the liberal-capitalist way of thinking, we can observe that this orientation was essentially brought up and fed by the system” (Modersohn, 1934, p.16, quoted by Niemitz & Paulsen, 1992, p.7)
shown how the political and ideological conjoncture of the “Libération” period in France contributed to the setting up of a fordian organization in the Renault plants in 1945 (Poitou, 1988). However the main interest of such a study with respect to our present topic would be helping to point out which powerful social forces could have been summoned up and to understand the role they played in the shaping of technical thought.
2.3. KM AS A COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
I have suggested (Poitou, 1979) that every technology includes a technical ideology, which provides the agents whose activities this technology describes and regulates, with a social representation of their duties, of their role and of their function.
In the case of a technology (or rather of technologies) as complex as design, there is a constant interplay between the way technical objects are thought of, the way technical thinking is understood, and which results in an implicit or explicit cognitive psychology, upon which vocational training and work organization are based. Clearly, this ought to work19
as a self-fulfilling prophecy: designers having been taught to think as they will be required to work, are required to work as they are supposed to think. For instance, when Vincenti (1990, p. 208) lists the categories of engineering design knowledge, he mixes the social representations that design engineers hold of their own mental activity, some sort of cognitive psychology of his own, and the social representations of design technology he shares with the engineers20. Such complex representations of the psychology of the engineers are exemplified by works such as Müller's (1990). They deserve careful examination, because they are an image as well as a model of the engineer's thinking to which designers might be supposed to conform, at least to some extend.
Rutz (1985) has reviewed the KM authors who give explicit consideration to the psychology of the designer. Rutz himself has proposed a psychological approach to design, in order to overcome what he calls the stagnation of KM. It can be hypothesized that such “psychology of the designer” will be found to be based upon various preconceptions about what the technical object is, what “designing” means, and what the criteria of a good design are. As we have seen briefly, the answers to these questions have varied very much through time. I suggest here to consider such psychological approaches of design and of the designers as social representations, and to include them among
19 Whether it actually does is an empirical matter, with which the project outlined here is basically concerned. It can already be observed that throughout his life span an engineer is likely to experience discrepancies between what he has been taught and what he is required to do.
the social factors to be scrutinized in order to understand the shaping of the designers' activity.
2.4- THE STAGNATION
At the beginning of the sixties, a crisis in design was patent : in 1962 and 1963 conferences were held about “the design bottleneck” (Niemitz & Paulsen, 1992, p. 5). Apparently neither the VDI recommendations about design, nor the new developments of KM gave complete satisfaction in this respect. The introduction of CAD/CAM seems to have been a more efficient response to the problem. But in 1985, Rutz keeps writing about a “stagnation” in KM. Is it as he argues, because KM theoricists did not pay enough attention to psychological factors, did not regard enough design as a mental process, and had too normative an approach (Rutz, 1985, p.100)?
I would agree with him when he writes that design methodologies are not flexible enough and do not adapt dynamically to the designer's task. But in my opinion this is not because they are not based enough upon the designer's psychology. It is more likely because they do not take into account the historical and conjunctural changes in the designer's assignements. Their being normative is not to be criticized : what would be the point of a “laissez-faire” methodology ? But in order to have an efficient methodology, one needs a better understanding of the shaping of the designers' thinking through the various factors which actually influence the design office tasks and goals.
3- SOME QUESTIONS FOR A RESEARCH PROJECT
I have no information about a crisis in France comparable to the 1962/1963 “bottleneck” in the German design offices. I have suggested earlier that, as far as design is concerned the French might have relied more than the Germans upon pragmatism, and less on abstract theorizing. This might have made it easier for them to adjust to changing economical and technical conditions. But how much does the behavior of the German designers differ from that of the French ? Put in an other way, was the 1962 “bottleneck” a crisis in the design offices or merely a crisis of KM ? How much, with the help of all the powerful factors which we have listed : vocational, organizational or ideological, did KM actually influence the day to day activity of the designers ? Is there not a “natural” or “psychological” universal way of performing a design study, whatever the theorizing or the norms called upon to enforce a priori methodologies ? Is it possible to spot and evaluate the deviation from these methodologies in the actual design work ?
I have only outlined here the general background of design office work in France and in Germany, and listed the major determinations of
the influence - if any - of KM in the German design offices. All the herein hypothesized differences between the two countries should be put to test, through a survey of the KM litterature, and perhaps some case studies. French and German norms for the development of a design project have to be compared, as well as the training of designers in both countries. Then the research should zoom in more precise comparisons. Historical cases of comparable technical development, conducted in both countries during the same period, could be selected in order to find out how the projects were effectively carried out, which methods were actually employed, whether or not norms, and which, were abided by. Such comparative studies would require the cooperation of engineers and psychologists, both with some training in the history of the technologies of production, and both fluent in the French and German languages.
To that end, I have already had talks with Dr. H.L. Dienel, from the Forschungsinstitut des Deutsches Museum in Munich. Among other interesting documents, the Museum has collections of industrial drawings, and engineers’ personal papers, including hand-made personal formula booklets.
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