Handling Preliminary Engineering Information: An Interview Study and Practical Approach for Clarifying Information Maturity

Handling preliminary information appropriately is a critical challenge for many aspects of systems engineering design. The topic is gaining renewed visibility due to the expanding possibilities to apply AI to preliminary information to support systems design, engineering, and management. However, there are few empirical studies of the practicalities of handling immature information and there is a lack of concretely developed, empirically evaluated, and practical approaches for clarifying information maturity levels, needed to ensure such information is appropriately used. This article addresses the gap, contributing new insight into how immature information is handled in industrial practice that is derived from interviews with 15 engineering and product development professionals from 5 companies. Thematic analysis reveals how practitioners work with preliminary information and where they require support. A solution was developed to address the empirically identified needs. In 5 follow-up interviews, practitioner feedback on this concept demonstrator was supportive. The main result of this research, in addition to the insights into practice, is a practical maturity grid-based assessment system that can help the providers of preliminary information self-assess and communicate information maturity levels. The assessments may be stored alongside the information and may be aggregated and visualised in CAD, augmented reality, or a range of charts to make information maturity visible and hence allow it to be more deliberately considered and managed. Implications of this research include that managers should promote greater awareness and discussion of preliminary information’s maturity and should introduce structured processes to track and manage the maturity of key information as it is progressively developed. The detailed maturity grids presented in this article may provide a foundation for such processes and can be adapted for particular situations.