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Engineering Studies
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Taking intermediary objects and equipping work into account in the study
of engineering practices
Dominique Vinck
a
a
PACTE Politique-Organisations, University of Grenoble, Grenoble, France
First published on: 11 February 2011
To cite this Article Vinck, Dominique(2011) 'Taking intermediary objects and equipping work into account in the study of
engineering practices', Engineering Studies, 3: 1, 25 44, First published on: 11 February 2011 (iFirst)
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2010.547989
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Taking intermediary objects and equipping work into account in the
study of engineering practices
Dominique Vinck*
PACTE Politique-Organisations, University of Grenoble, BP 47 le patio,
Grenoble cedex 9, Grenoble 38040, France
(Received 10 September 2010; nal version received 8 November 2010)
This article shows that the equipping of intermediary objects is a central
concern of engineers and technicians. Through the process of equipping, new
properties are conferred on the intermediary object and this contributes to the
shaping of the design space and collective work. I follow in particular how
equipping is used in practices of mediation, temporal set-up and framework
outlining and how it creates spaces of exchange. The argument developed is
based on ethnographic studies of engineering design activities in the
manufacturing industry and in a design oce in charge of developing a large
instrument for the CERN cyclotron.
Keywords: intermediary object; equipping; equipment; data exchange; engineering
design
Introduction: one more step in the study of engineering design practices
This article contributes to the detailed study of engineering practices, focusing
specically on the case of engineering design. It oers a vocabulary for naming,
following and assessing these practices. Its aim is to make a methodological
contribution to the study of engineering practices by developing and extending the
notion of intermediary object. It explores in particular the notion of intermediary
object equipping, which bridges the gap between the study of engineering design and
the study of design engineers as people.
The central argument is that the equipping of intermediary objects changes the
status and ontological properties of these objects and contributes to the shaping of
the design space and work collective. By equipment, we mean any element added to
intermediary objects enabling them to be connected to conventional supports and
spaces of circulation. The equipping work is the collective activity that involves
agreeing about the features to be added to intermediary objects so that they can be
enrolled in the space of exchange between actors. Various aspects of engineering
design practices can be better understood by following intermediary objects and their
equipping process. Hence, this analysis returns to the engineering design activity to
look at the kind of intermediary objects it produces and uses. More specically, it
shows that the equipping of these objects is really a central concern of technicians
*Email: dominique.vinck@upmf-grenoble.fr
Engineering Studies
Vol. 3, No. 1, April 2011, 2544
ISSN 1937-8629 print/ISSN 1940-8374 online
2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/19378629.2010.547989
http://www.informaworld.com
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and engineers. Explaining the intermediary objects features and the ways they are
equipped helps to categorise the key features of engineering design practices.
The argument developed is based on the review of ten years of eldwork on
various engineering design activities occurring in the manufacturing industry and in
a design oce responsible for the development of a large instrument for the CERN
1
cyclotron.
2
However, the analysis also seems relevant to many engineering activities,
for instance the case of environmental management in the chemical industry.
3
The rst part of the paper examines the potential of the concept of intermediary
object in the study of engineering design practices. It briey recalls the genesis of the
concept in studies of scientic cooperation networks before concluding by assessing
possibilities for engineering studies. The second part of the article reviews some
ndings from our investigations on engineering design activity in which we focused
on the concept of the intermediary object. It shows how the concept was used in
previous work by the author and his colleagues and underlines how it can advance
the study of engineering design practices. The third part, the core of this article,
extends the concept in a new way, looking at how these intermediary objects are
equipped with various marks or codes that produce transformations in both the
objects and the work collectives. It demonstrates that studying the equipping of
intermediary objects leads to a better understanding of the co-construction of people
and of practices in design and engineering.
The intermediary object as a potentially useful concept for engineering studies
When the notion of intermediary objects originated in a sociology-of-science
investigation, it served to describe and to characterise scientic cooperation networks.
4
As it identied the actors and characterised the forms of organisation and
coordination, and the agreements binding them, the survey strove to capture the
content of activity (the objectives of each network, the acquired or expected
intermediary results). The investigation followed the objects that were exchanged
andcirculatedamong the networkmembers, referredtothenas intermediary objects.
5
The methodological idea of following both the actors
6
and the intermediary
objects proved to be useful for data collection. It pointed to the fact that the most
active scientic members of these networks devoted a considerable amount of time to
designing, negotiating, producing and disseminating all kinds of objects: texts
(reports, forms, protocols), computer les, biological samples (DNA probes, HIV
1
European Organisation for Nuclear Research.
2
These investigations were performed by the author and his colleagues, all mostly trained in
both mechanical engineering and in sociology and anthropology. Part of this eldwork is
published in Vinck, Everyday Engineering, 2003, 1327.
3
Reverdy, Writing Procedures, 2003.
4
The Actor-Network Theory called attention to the importance of materiality and reports on
sociotechnical constructions (knowledge statements, devices, actors, etc.), in terms of networks
of associations between entities (human and non-human) obtained following a translation
operation. Akrich, Beyond Social Construction of Technology, 1992; Callon, Some
Elements for a Sociology of Translation, 1986; Latour, On Interobjectivity, 1996; Latour,
When Things Strike Back, 1999; Law, After ANT, 1999. Others authors, like Dick Pels
et al. (The Status of the Object, 2002), pointed out that it was time to rediscover the ways in
which social and material relations are entangled.
5
Vinck, Les objets interme diaires dans les re seaux de coope ration scientique, 1999.
6
Latour, Science in Action, 1987.
26 D. Vinck
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viral strains, brain sections), instruments, animals, phantoms and even patients.
Given the time and energy taken up by these activities and the detailed attention
given to these objects by the network members, it was assumed they were important
for the interactions inside the network. Looking at the preparation, circulation and
use of intermediary objects appeared to be a fruitful means of describing the network
and the scientic activities of its members. Following these objects revealed some
previously invisible but crucial activities such as the design and preparation of
intermediary objects or their logistic management (object circulation, inventory-
taking and conservation). This helped to better understand what was going on in
scientic cooperation networks.
The actors focus on intermediary objects emphasised the objects importance in
terms of the action undertaken, either because the objects contributed something to
the action, or because they extended or transformed it. The hypothesis then emerged
that the details of these objects should be taken into account in order to understand
the collective action, the structuring of the network and the results generated:
publications, reference materials, best practices and health devices, notably.
Within the framework of actor-network theory (ANT), the intermediary object
was considered and theorised as a form of representation and a form of translation.
7
Representation referred to the inscription of something in the matter of the object. In
the case of scientic cooperation networks, intermediary objects represented both the
object under study (samples of viruses or of pathological tissues, reports outlining
the medical history of a patient, medical imagery of a patients body) and the specic
perspective of those who designed and prepared them.
The intermediary object as a form of translation referred to the shift from
intention to the realisation of an idea, a shift that involved some form of
transformation. The resulting object generated something dierent from what was
originally sought. The expectation was transformed and socialised
8
through the
conceptual and material preparation within hospitals and laboratories. The material
nature of objects (e.g. a blood sample) was seen as a source of opaqueness in the
action. This could not be reduced to initial intentions (e.g. representing a typical case
of such and such a disease) as these were overridden by other factors entering into
the situation. Latour showed that when inscriptions were followed (e.g. plots from
analysis instruments, tables of gures, diagrams and texts), it was possible to analyse
scientic practices dierently and to deate some of the abusive questions raised in
epistemology.
9
These inscriptions were not just pieces of information; they were also
material entities, which could prove dicult to produce, keep and use.
Later, when social scientists moved towards engineering studies, the following of
intermediary objects as a methodological innovation was found to be potentially
useful for the study of engineering design practices as a complementary approach to
interviewing, observing and following people. While interviews and document
analysis (e.g. engineering manuals and literature) mainly provided an ocial,
idealistic and normative representation of design activities, it was also important to
nd a way to look at real activity and practice. One way was to follow the engineers
and designers in their day-to-day activities, to observe them, to ask them to explain
what they were doing and to describe their ethnomethods. The idea was to shed
7
Vinck, Les objets interme diaires dans les re seaux de coope ration scientique, 1999.
8
Knorr-Cetina, Laboratory Studies, 1995.
9
Latour and Woolgar, Laboratory Life, 1979.
Engineering Studies 27
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additional light on the activity by looking at the objects being manipulated and
produced, even if they were common, unspecic (e.g. a pencil) and apparently
unimportant. The hypothesis was that by looking at these objects and their
circulation from one designer to another it was possible to produce a real picture of
engineering activity and organisation rather than an idealised version.
The notionof intermediary objects was seentohelp piece together howinterrelations
are formed in a design process, without simply reducing this activity to the cognitive and
instrumental aspects of engineers work. Given that everything concerned with
articulating, aligning, adjusting, exploring, etc., could be potentially important for
understanding the design activity, sociologists needed to study the details of material,
bodily and conversational practices together with their lot of local and contingent
accomplishments. For these reasons, we undertook the study of intermediary objects,
seeing in this a useful methodological strategy for the study of engineering design.
Revealing engineering design activities
This second section reviews some of the ndings from our observations into
engineering design activity using the notion of intermediary objects. It documents
the payo of the notion in the study of design practices, in particular the benet of a
better understanding of the intermediary object equipping process.
In the 1990s, when social scientists and mechanical engineers began to perform
ethnographic investigations into engineering design activities in the manufacturing
industry, the literature available mainly comprised engineering manuals and
articles.
10
These referred to design methods, tools and organisation, either in a
normative way or in an idealistic style (i.e. referring to the potential benets of the
use of tools or methods). Similarly, engineering scholars had no real knowledge of
the practices inside design oces. Sometimes, they had meetings with the heads of
design oces and with specialists of design methodology inside rms. On rare
occasions, they also visited the oces. We thus decided to go and see for ourselves
what was really happening in design oces. From going out into the eld, our group
of engineering and social science scholars and students learned to observe and write
eld notes. This activity taught us to use notions like actors, social worlds,
organisational setting and intermediary object in order to capture the ongoing design
activities, real practices and organisation. Through our eldwork, we discovered
quantities of sketches, drawings, models made of cardboard or modelling clay,
prototypes, broken parts, listings and screen shots in the design oces visited. These
were many in number and of dierent kinds. Although the designers worked with
CAD software, many of the intermediary objects observed were textual documents
(sales or technical instructions, price and lead time plans, forecast cost price
documents, product creation notications, detailed methods, operation plans,
summary documents, anomaly sheets, open-ended specications, etc.), graphic
documents (denition outlines, manufacturing plans, block diagrams, etc.) and
physical objects (prototypes and dies).
The list of these intermediary objects was specic to each design oce. One
design oce displayed a disorganised mass of large sheets portraying industrial
10
The term engineering design activities refers to the devising of a component, a system or a
process to meet normally specied needs. Among the fundamental elements of these activities
are the establishment of goals and criteria, analysis, calculation and testing.
28 D. Vinck
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drawings and manual annotations, with people touching them and talking around
them. In another design oce, well-ordered stacks of these sheets could be found,
folded and apparently not used very often but showing many lists of data and
equations. In yet another oce, there were few papers but many pieces of metal,
prototypes and broken parts. The designers here could be seen to be looking at these
objects, picking them up and moving them between their table and the test bench.
Before even commencing the interviews, the situations described, thanks to the
intermediary objects followed, proved to be very dierent from one oce to the next.
Looking at and following these objects also revealed much about the activities,
some of which appeared to be clandestine (e.g. the use of modelling clay in a rm
whose management insisted on the use of digital modelling only). Identifying and
describing these intermediary objects, in addition to performing interviews and
observing what people did and said, made it possible to capture and report on a
considerable part of the design processes.
11
It also helped to shed light on crucial but
uncovered relations between people who were not in the description of the ocial
working process, e.g. between the production shop operators and the designers. This
improved access to the actors engaged in a given technological design and led to a
more detailed view of the relations (mapping of the real design process), activities
and practices that would otherwise have been dicult to achieve in the ocial and
spontaneous presentations of the actors interviewed. In one rm, the designers
explained the usual circuit followed by a drawing, its validation by the people in the
production shop and its transformation into an executing drawing to be used by the
operators. However, by following the digital drawings sent by the designers to
the production shop, it was found that the operators validated these drawings
without properly checking them. They did not add anything to the digital le,
referred to as the anomaly sheet, which they were supposed to use to express any
criticism of the design. Later, when they received the executing drawings, they were
often angry and sometimes went up to the design oce to insult the designers. At
other times, when they received the drawings for validation, they went up to the
design oce to discuss them with the designers, express their criticism, ask questions
and make suggestions, orally and using their hands, touching the computer screen or
the drawings on the table. In the latter case, it was the designers who lled in the
anomaly sheet on behalf of the operators. In other cases, the operators went back to
the production shop with the designers to show them the machines and the
operational or broken products.
Several ndings were drawn from these observations: (1) the ocial circuit did
not reect the real activity; (2) the trajectory of the drawing varied from one time to
the next (depending on whether or not any informal discussions took place between
the designers and the operators before validation); (3) the operators did not express
their comments by adding text to a digital le; (4) the operators and the designers
often preferred unocial and informal discussions to help set up an agreement
before validation; (5) the quality of their informal discussions depended on the kind
of objects they picked up, touched or annotated (screen, sheet of paper, part, etc.).
As another example, the activity inside an open space design oce at one rm
showed designers surrounded by various kinds of drawings and dierent versions of
11
Vinck and Jeantet, Mediating and Commissioning Objects in the Sociotechnical Process of
Product Design, 1995; Boujut and Blanco, Intermediary Objects as a Means to Foster Co-
operation in Engineering Design, 2002; Vinck, Everyday Engineering, 2003.
Engineering Studies 29
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these. The picture presented to the observer can be summarised as follows: there are
a few drawings on the table in front of them and one displayed on the engineers
computer screen. Two designers are talking while pointing alternately at some sheets
of paper and the screen. One of them is making some annotations to one drawing
and explaining the relations with another drawing. The other designer picks up a
previous version of the drawing and points to it. They discuss the dierences between
versions. After drawing up a precise description of the various drawings and the
series of movements involved, the observer concludes that the order of appearance of
these objects and the system of mutual cross-referencing they shared could be used to
piece together their inter-relations and the way they linked up in a design process.
This kind of reconstitution, built up from various design oces and design
projects, also unveiled the design process organisation, the sharing of tasks, their
sequencing and regulation points (i.e. when they met to compare and contrast points
of view, ask for explanations, provide their colleagues with help or set up an
agreement on a technical design or on a design strategy). By analysing each of these
objects and its eective use in detail, it was thus possible to qualify the sequential,
cooperative or integrated nature of the design process. By listing, characterising and
situating the objects, the study outlined contrasting congurations from one
organisation to another, underlining how dierent design oces can be, even when
they perform very similar technical activities.
This eldwork produced a very dierent picture of design activities compared
with that provided in engineering literature presenting only specic design
procedures, CAD software, calculation methods and rules (e.g. pertaining to
industrial drawings).
12
This picture is much more complex while at the same time it
suggests something ordinary and routine.
As yet another example, in one design oce, the operators and designers met to
compare and contrast their views about a specic point. This point was relevant to
both the design and the production process as it concerned where to start the
machining. While being an important factor for the operators, it also had a number
of consequences on the design solution. Through discussion and pointing, the
operators and designers managed to reach an agreement. One of them could be seen
to add an annotation to a drawing on the table translating their joint decision. In
other cases, when they only had a computer screen to work on, they were unable to
inscribe their decision in this way.
Seeing their diculty, the eld observer conducting this investigation, who was
both a mechanical engineer and a sociologist, invented inter-professional
symbols.
13
These were graphic objects that could be incorporated into the designers
3D viewing tools in order to facilitate their comparative work and enable their
agreement to be inscribed. Thus, as demonstrated in this case, following the actors
12
Engineering design has been the focus of some attention (see Bucciarelli, Designing
Engineers, 1994; Downey, The Machine in Me, 1998; McDonnell and Lloyd, About, 2009). In a
journal like Design Studies, except a special issue in 2000 on Studying design with
ethnographic methods, most of the papers concern normative thinking on how to design and
how to train designers, but there are very few articles on how these designers actually work.
Most of the journals papers report research on principles, procedures, methods, knowledge
and techniques pertaining to design activity, management and education (see Visser,
Design, 2009, for the state of the art in the experimental study of cognitive aspects).
13
Laureillard and Vinck, The Role of Graphical Representations in Inter-Professional
Cooperation, 2003.
30 D. Vinck
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and the objects helped to reveal the socio-cognitive processes involved in the design
situation, e.g. evaluation, analysis and decision-making. This provides a sharp
contrast with engineering literature where the designer is represented alone in a
cognitive process where the aim is to solve design problems. Observing the in situ
activity and looking at the traces and intermediary objects produced, mobilised and
circulated by the actors are eective ways of gaining access to these socio-cognitive
processes, which are, in fact, much more collective and interactive than expected.
Our approach also shows the bodily and material component of these processes.
Looking at intermediary objects helps to shed light on things, such as cognitive
aspects, which are not entirely clear when the focus is on people.
The above review underlines the quantity and importance of these intermediary
objects in the engineering design process. They reect contrasted situations and
processes. They help to reveal socio-cognitive dynamics, real networks inside the
industrial engineering organisation and the eective practices of engineers. To
understand what is going on with these intermediary objects and their importance
for the actors involved, it is useful to look at the relevant processes in detail.
The intermediary object helps to reveal representation and translation processes
Engineering designers are very careful with the details pertaining to intermediary
objects and their circulation because these are the places where important
phenomena occur. Among other things, the intermediary object is where the
representation process unfolds, i.e. the idea of inscribing something in the matter of
the object. This representation concerns the processes upstream of the object and the
projections downstream. Upstream, the intermediary object reects those who
designed, prepared and circulated it. Sometimes they put their name or signature on
it. The intermediary object materialises their intentions (i.e. what and how they want
to design), their working or thinking habits,
14
their interactions and the compromises
they introduce (e.g. the agreement settled between designers and operators). The
intermediary objects, therefore, are seen to act as a trace or mark of the designers
and their relations.
Sometimes, the inscription is negotiated, for instance, when designers and
marketers meet to agree on what a client really wants. They discuss and nally set up
a list of specications representing the initial demand of the client. It is not
therefore just a straightforward social construction reecting the social milieu of
engineering. In this respect, the intermediary object is required to channel part of the
desire and purpose of the client, the end-user and other actors in society.
One example of these negotiations was seen in the CERN design oce when an
engineer had to design a shielding wall, for which he had received no specications
from the client. The client, in fact, was the high energy physics international
scientic community comprising over 500 high level scientists. These scientists were
preoccupied by the design of the original instruments but not interested in this
shielding disk. They did not want to dene it because they considered it to be of little
importance. Dening it would have introduced unnecessary constraints. However,
the head of the design oce anticipated that if the design of this shielding disk was
left to one side any further, this could lead to an impossible-to-solve problem as
14
See, for instance, the notion of technical paradigm: Constant, The Origins of the Turbojet
Revolution, 1980.
Engineering Studies 31
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nobody would consider the space required by the disk. He wanted the designer to
make the shielding disk exist. The designer in charge of the disk therefore imagined
its possible specications and drew up a rst version of the solution. He then put this
solution before the community of physicists expecting them to react and express their
desires. Discussions and negotiations then commenced between the designers,
the head of the design oce, the technical coordinator of the project
and the representatives of the community of physicists. The nal drawing
represented the specic journey required to set up the specications. By following
the various versions of the intermediary objects involved (drawings, specications
lists, meeting minutes, etc.), it was possible to trace how the clients desire was
actually formed and how the designers contributed to the shaping of this demand.
Intermediary objects are also the places where translation processes take place.
Translation refers to the shift that occurs during the development of an intermediary
object and, thus, throughout the whole design and engineering process. This shift is
not necessarily desired or even controlled, and may even betray the designer. When
the intention is materialised, something new is introduced owing to the materiality or
to the formalism used. Translation was observed in a design oce where a designer
was drawing a metal part based on a list of specications. However, there were
unspecied features as well, namely surfaces considered to be unimportant. Yet, the
formalism required by the industrial drawing meant that the designer had to dene
all the surfaces. He thus took it upon himself to make a number of decisions
regarding the unimportant surfaces. As the observer of this case followed the
intermediary objects circulating from the design oce towards their validation by
several engineers in dierent positions, he met the operator having to manufacture
the product. When the operator looked at the executing drawings, he discovered that
one of the surfaces would be dicult and costly to make. However, he was bound to
follow the indications on the drawing. A few weeks later, the operator and the
designer met up by chance in the rms canteen. The operator told the designer how
dicult the design would be to make. The designer discovered that the diculty
related to the unimportant surface. The operator proposed to change the design in
order to get over this diculty. This made the designer realise that the denition of
this unimportant surface, which was imposed by the industrial drawing formalism,
transformed it into a specication for the operator. This example underlines that one
of the advantages of following intermediary objects is that this makes it possible to
describe the wanted or unwanted translation processes unfolding through the design
process.
15
The resulting object generates something dierent from what was originally
aimed at, which is one of the reasons why engineering design actors worry about the
objects details and circulation. The object does not simply materialise the values,
demands and specications, presiding over its making, or the cognitive processes
involved; it also introduces something into the action a constraint, a shift,
something opaque and this leads the designer to equivocate about the
consequences of its design. The material nature of objects (written records or
prototypes) is a source of opaqueness in engineering action. Similarly, while a list of
specications might represent a clients expectations, these are transformed and
15
These translation processes have also been well documented by Nieusma and Riley
regarding engineering for development initiatives: Nieusma and Riley, Designs on
Development, 2010.
32 D. Vinck
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socialised through the development of the intermediary object as technical and
conceptual changes take place within the engineering oce. These phenomena
(representations and translations, and others not developed here)
16
lead the observer
to look closely at what is going on with these intermediary objects and their
circulation.
The major considerations when equipping intermediary objects
The third section now extends the notion of intermediary objects in a new way. It is
based on the observation of controversies between design technicians and engineers
regarding some of the details of these intermediary objects. We observed that many
discussions inside and between design oces and production shops concern the way
these objects should be equipped with marks or codes. These details seem to be
important for the actors because the marks or codes appear to structure the actors
activity and relations. This section will show that looking at the equipping of
intermediary objects provides insight into the co-construction of the people and of
the practices in design and engineering. The equipping of intermediary objects proves
to be central to the actors. Indeed, the equipping process changes the status of the
intermediary objects, structuring the social and technical world of the designers.
17
An ethnographic study inside the design oces of a major scientic facility
In the 1990s, our investigations took us inside the design oces of the CERN in
Geneva in charge of designing part of the ATLAS detector.
18
The CERN is a world
centre for fundamental research. Its scientic objectives are to explore the structure
of matter by simulating the conditions underlying the origins of the universe (the Big
Bang). The facility has several particle accelerators and colliders in which the
particles enter into collision. The detectors are used to record the eects produced by
these collisions (notably the trajectories followed by the particles after collision, the
energy emitted and the large electrons generated). The physicists (working in many
dierent institutes spread across the globe) had dened the principles of a new
detector. This detector, called ATLAS, was designed to be installed on a ring (i.e. a
particle accelerator) with a circumference of 27 km and set in a cave roughly 100 m
16
See Vinck, Everyday Engineering, 2003, regarding the intermediary objects as mediators,
operators of change and temporal markers, and spatial markers and framework.
17
Sometimes intermediary objects are transformed into boundary objects. Boundary object is a
concept originating in the work of Star and Griesemer, (Institutional Ecology, Translations
and Boundary Objects, 1989) who demonstrated the role of all manner of artefacts
directories, classications, maps, standardised methods involved in the distributed
management of knowledge inside a specic collaboration between groups. The notion seeks
to qualify articulation mechanisms of actors belonging to heterogeneous social worlds
(groups of activity having neither a clear border nor a formal and stable organisation). The
notion helps to look at the ecology of the workplace and at all the things involved in the
mediation of knowledge. See Trompette and Vinck, Revisiting the Notion of Boundary
Object, 2009; Star, Ceci nest pas un objet-frontie` re, 2010.
18
ATLAS is the name of a detector used in particle physics experiments at the Large Hadron
Collider at CERN for the search for new discoveries in collisions of protons of high energy.
The experiment would provide information about the basic forces that have shaped the
universe since its origin. The accelerator and the ATLAS detector were inaugurated in 2008.
Engineering Studies 33
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underground. ATLAS has a diameter of 25 m and a length of 40 m. The design oce
engineers and technicians were in charge of the detailed design of this detector.
The design of the detector was in fact the result of international collaboration
involving several thousand researchers (mostly physicists from across the whole
world) and over 100 design oces spread across 20 countries (in other words, several
hundred engineers and technicians speaking dierent languages and using dierent
design tools).
Our ethnographic study was limited to the design oces located at the CERN in
Geneva. Inside these oces, the observer came across physicists (some of whom
would be using the detector), mechanical engineers and members of the ATLAS
project Technical Coordination team. Roughly 20 people worked in the oce
discussed in this article (designers, structural engineers and project engineers). The
oce had an open-space layout with the exception of the managers oce, which was
separate and tted with a window looking out on to the open-plan design area, and a
small meeting room. The members of the design oce were in charge of designing
and modelling various parts of the detector. They worked mainly with computer-
assisted design tools in order to do drawings, run calculations and manage technical
data. However, their desks were also piled up with a large quantity of A1 drawings
and screen shots.
The designers and their boss did not stay put in their seats the whole time, even if
each person had a dedicated task. Several times a day, small groups met for
discussions around the plotter, in front of a computer screen or around a table where
several sheets of paper were laid out. Sometimes, the discussions involved all the
design oce members. Sometimes, one designer would go across to another
designers desk, even if the designer was absent, to look at a drawing. Sometimes, the
designer would borrow the drawing and maybe make a copy of it before going back
to their table. Sometimes, people from outside the oce (a designer from another
design oce, a member of the technical coordination team or a visiting physicist)
would come to visit the design oce, talk to some of the designers, and perhaps leave
a sketch or a drawing behind.
Equipping
Of course, the discussions taking place concerned the detector and its design. The
members of the team would talk about dierent requirements, technical problems
and solutions, but also about the details of the sketches and drawings. It was not
surprising to see that the designers invested greatly in these objects in terms of their
preparation, calculation and development, but also in terms of the logistics they
required (e.g. checking who would receive a specic version of a drawing and who
would give and explain the drawing, etc.) and control over their use (e.g. checking
who would use an intermediary object and for what use).
The observer found that many of these discussions also concerned the circulation of
people and drawings: who would receive which version and what was the status of a
drawing were subjects of dispute. Some of these controversies attracted attention to the
technicians and designers recurring major concern: the signatures, codes and dates
appearing on industrial drawings, in other words the signs used to equip these objects.
The design project seemed to depend on these. If a drawing was improperly numbered,
this represented a threat to the design project as a whole: it jeopardised the meeting of
objectives, the integration of the results coming fromeach designer or engineer and the
34 D. Vinck
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validation of decisions. The quality of this intermediary object equipping appeared to
be central in many of their formal and informal discussions. The structuring of
individual and collective activities seemed to depend on it. These marginal details (i.e.
the codes, dates and signatures appearing in a small box in the bottom right-hand
corner of the drawings) were managed as if they completely changed the status and
characteristics of the drawing. These additional elements seemed to modify its future.
The centrality of forms of exchange
Following the designers and the intermediary objects in this design oce revealed the
importance of the discussions and dierent actions (pointing, annotating, gesturing,
note-taking, coming together, occupying centre stage, etc.) taking place around the
intermediary objects. They underlined the central place occupied by the exchange of
data and information between designers. The technicians and engineers were seen to
continually search for information (looking inside shared data bases, walking
around the desktop of a colleague or calling up another design oce or one of the
researchers representing the client).
Mobilising the information produced by others was no simple task. This is
reected in the testimony of one of the physicists attempting to recover the latest
versions of the detectors technical drawings in order to integrate them into his
simulations and evaluate whether they had any impact on the physics of the
experiment:
Lars [chief engineer] needs to get his act together. In theory, we should be able nd them
on EDMS [a shared data base] but these documents are not always easy to read on a
normal PC. Otherwise, were going to have to go across to building 530 and ask for a
print-out. Getting drawings passed on has always been, and continues to be, a big
problem at the CERN. In theory, whenever the engineers change anything, Lars should
pick up the phone and tell me, so that I can check what that changes for the physics, but
in reality, I often nd out about them during meetings. The situations better now
because Im working directly with Chris [Technical Coordinator]; he invites me to all the
meetings, so Ive got more meetings where I have the opportunity to . . . but nothings
been formalised.
The drawings changed but the information about new versions was not
circulated. The new versions were stored in an accessible data base but their
materiality was inappropriate. Furthermore, the actors concerned had to strive to
recover information associated with these drawings (existence of new versions,
possibilities and constraints linked to their material forms, location and access,
authors and holders), without which the drawings could not be used properly.
Additionally, other data were produced by designers who attempted to prevent
them from being circulated, for fear of the way they would be interpreted by others,
perhaps considering the data to be stabilised and validated when in fact they were
not. This is explained by one designer during a meeting: I havent yet put them on
CDD [drawing management system], Im being cautious. Concerning the dimen-
sions, Im playing safe, I know theyll change.
The search for information is not limited to obtaining technical data. Indeed, the
designers also strove to qualify these data by nding out their origin and the history
of their construction (and in particular the identity of the author), the degree of trust
they could have in them and their restrictive or negotiable nature. In other words, the
Engineering Studies 35
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designers strove to nd out information about this information (formal or informal
meta-data), as much as they strove to unearth the data in the rst place. They did not
trust isolated, de-contextualised data and drawings if they did not know where they
had come from or who had produced them.
The head of the design oce showed signs of great concern when, from time to
time, he found drawings with no information about their author or status lying
around on desks or being passed on or discussed in meetings. The risk was that a
passing physicist might pick up a drawing, handed over by a projector, without any
information about the date, reference number or name of the person in charge, and
take it away with them. The head of the design oce often met with physicists or
designers who happened to have screen shots or print-outs of detector part drawings
with no reference. During discussions with them, he was confronted with the fact
that he did not always know whether the drawings they talked about were valid.
The concern expressed by the designers about whether information was qualied
and should be circulated highlights the importance of information exchange.
Following the actors and their intermediary objects in a design oce reveals other
features of engineering design activity: the continuous search for and circulation of
information, the preoccupation with the status of the information and the degree of
trust that can be placed in it. These features relate to intermediary object equipping
(e.g. the reference information on an industrial design drawing).
The discussions concerning these additional elements appended to drawings,
sketches and screen shots are lively and recurrent in the design oce. They
concerned the way information is exchanged: who gives what, to whom, when and in
what context.
Careful examination of these forms of exchange also shows that what is at stake
in this passing on of technical data has to do with the coordinated and rationalised
circulation of information along with the anthropological issue of gift exchange; the
technical information given is a gift carrying with it something of the person oering
it. Engineers do not just give away any form of data to anybody. Le caille reports on
the circumstances and conditions under which a trace produced during design is
qualied to switch from one design world to another, for example from the private
personal working world of an engineer to the semi-private world of a number of
trusted colleagues with whom the information is shared, or to a quasi public world of
a database shared by all engineers involved in a given project.
19
He observes that the
details of these exchanges are to be found in the additional elements equipping
intermediary objects. Therefore, there would seem to be a close relationship between
the anthropological conditions of the exchange of information and the elements
equipping the objects being circulated.
In design, as well as in engineering, engineers strive to identify the most explicit
and the least ambiguous possible denition of an object to be manufactured,
installed and used in order to satisfy the needs of those who have requested it. The
question of the exchange of information between them is central. Indeed, it is even a
sensitive issue. They act as if the quality of the work accomplished depends on the
quality of these information exchanges. It is, therefore, not surprising that the
conditions underlying information exchanges are the subject of controversy;
methodology, language, media, forms and additional elements appended to the
intermediary objects being circulated are all issues of the highest importance. For
19
Le caille, La trace habilite e, 2003.
36 D. Vinck
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engineers, the problem is to agree on the right type of equipping because this will
inuence the form and format of exchanges.
Equipping as an ontological transformation of the equipped being
Design activity ethnography has led observers to introduce distinctions between the
intermediary objects produced, used or exchanged, for example a distinction
concerning the type of media, whether it is on paper or in digital format.
20
Based on
a detailed analysis of practices surrounding these objects, Le caille and Grebici,
instead suggest a distinction between traceable objects to which actors can add notes
(covers sketches, designs and drawings on a blank sheet of paper either done by hand
or printed out), and grapho-digital objects (GDO), developed with computer tools
(les, screen shots and print-outs).
21
Print-outs are in fact to be found at the
intersection of both forms, indicating a continuum between paper media and digital
models. Similarly, software is currently being developed that allows for the insertion
of notes, traces or graphical elements in les. The variety of routes taken by the
objects observed is characterised by dierent types of materialisation. These are
tending to eliminate the break between graphic and digital media.
The importance attributed by designers to the possibility of annotating and
leaving traces on the objects they handle demonstrates their investment in these
objects according to the conditions underlying the use of roughs. The intermediary
object upon which a trace can be left is called a rough. The rough is not a type of
media, like a kind of drawing, but a condition of the action (i.e. it can be written and
drawn on). It is produced and used in situations where actors attempt to dene
solutions and test them, either for themselves or with colleagues.
22
Roughs allow
designers to express new conjectures. Produced and engaged in collective action, they
are tools of synchronised cooperation.
23
These objects are intermediary, unnished
and used by actors to compare and contrast points of view before qualifying the
objects in question.
Focusing our attention more on the forms of intermediary object use than on the
supporting media, we discover a rst form of use: the rough is rst and foremost a
traceable object. Other intermediary objects correspond to other forms of use.
Sometimes, the distinction between them boils down to a few minor details. These
can mean that the objects are no longer roughs but evidence or, in other situations,
enabled traces.
24
During design activity, some objects acquire the status of evidence.
They are produced and selected by the designers to represent and materialise a
solution and to try to convince their colleagues. The evidence is sometimes the same
intermediary object, with or without a distinctive mark; the dierence lies in its use.
With the object having achieved the status of evidence, the engineers no longer
explore the problem; they act as if the solution has already been dened.
20
Henderson, On Line and on Paper, 1998.
21
Le caille, La trace habilite e, 2003; Grebici et al., A Unied Framework to Manage
Information Maturity in Design Process, 2007.
22
Le Ber et al., Modeling and Comparing Farm Maps Using Graphs and Case-based
Reasoning, 2003; Lefebvre, Pictures and Boundaries Work in Mathematics, 2003.
23
Boujut and Blanco, Intermediary Objects as a Means to Foster Co-operation in
Engineering Design, 2002.
24
Le caille, La trace habilite e, 2003.
Engineering Studies 37
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Other intermediary objects are given the status of enabled trace, when engineers
agree to confer this quality upon them. This status involves work to identify and
select the objects, but also, and more importantly, to qualify and equip these objects.
Once equipped, the intermediary object receives a label and new distinguishing
traces, which means that the designer has agreed to circulate the object and to submit
it to the scrutiny of his/her colleagues.
Our observations also revealed that the ontology of these objects is fragile,
precarious and even ephemeral. It depends on the actors interactions. Their concern
about the equipping of intermediary objects is precisely related to this issue of
objects switching from one ontological status to another. The equipment added to
intermediary objects enables them to be connected to conventional supports and
spaces of circulation. Engineering ethnography can therefore improve the study of
intermediary objects, through the denition of three signicant ontologies reecting
engineers opinions: rough, evidence and enabled trace.
On the face of it, this qualication and equipping operation might appear to be
marginal and formal, but in fact it is not at all simple.
25
It is the subject of lively
discussions between engineers. The debates observed between engineers have more to
do with the equipping of intermediary objects than with the dierent points of view
they defend via these intermediary objects. Hence, the challenge relating to the
equipping of these objects concerns their change in ontological status as well as the
areas of exchange and circulation that are co-produced alongside this change in
status. The equipping of the object as it enters into circulation within a space of
professional exchange, which can have varying degrees of scope and heterogeneity,
corresponds to an ontological transformation of the object, to its switch to a new
status and to the modication of its characteristics (e.g. print-outs that have been
equipped with marks to which the engineers have agreed, receive the special status of
enabled trace and can be sent to Production).
The dierent roles of equipment and associated processes
Equipping refers to various ongoing processes that play dierent roles for the
resulting equipment. Here we shall explore how equipping is used in mediation,
temporal set-up and framework outlining.
Equipping is important for the designers because intermediary objects act as
mediators that interact with the actors present. The drawing introduces something
into the action that partly escapes the actors. For instance, the graphical
expression of an idea sometimes becomes a design constraint because the other
designers do not know and do not care about the status of this drawing. If an
intermediary object bears no specic mark, its status is not explicit and might be
interpreted dierently depending on the actors involved and the situation in which
the object is encountered. Outside of the specic situation in which the actors
involved know who gave the object to whom and in what circumstances, the same
object can be interpreted very dierently. The addition of specic marks channels
the mediation process and limits the interpretation. Intermediary object oers each
person involved something to hold on to (each designer can grasp the object from
25
Qualication is a form of equipment. However, equipping also requires the material addition
of something (a symbol, a label, a piece of material, etc.) to an intermediary object.
38 D. Vinck
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his/her usual point of view). This interpretative exibility
26
leads to the emergence
of a solution, partly unbeknownst to the participants because materiality builds
and constrains the design dynamics (building of compromises and sharing of
knowledge). Conscious of this, the actors ght to master the details (materiality
and formalism) of these objects. Here, equipping is part of their detail-control
strategy.
The mediating process diers according to the status of the intermediary object.
Some objects, e.g. roughs, have a low level of codication, which facilitates the
integration of viewpoints during cooperative action. Others are highly codied, e.g.
the denition drawings that design oces pass on to production engineering oces.
They are closed objects and oer little scope for acting on design as they operate
within a prescriptive register.
27
Roughs, on the other hand, only actively support
design action when they are developed jointly. They do not support memory back-
up.
28
But some of these intermediary objects are neither clearly open nor closed.
Their openness depends on their status, which is not an intrinsic characteristic. The
same object can mediate various dynamics. This is why designers sometimes ask for
specic marks to be added to an object as these dene its status and limit the
interpretative exibility.
Equipping also plays a role in terms of temporal set-up. Intermediary objects
already act as temporal markers. For instance, during typical design meetings,
dierent objects are constructed (sketches, lists and tables) or mobilised (pencil,
book, coee cups). Their mobilisation and deployment reveal the temporal structure
of the socio-cognitive process (understanding of the demand, exploration of possible
design solutions and their evaluation, settling of design decisions, sharing out of the
work to be done). Blanco observed 20 objects being produced and used according to
a process of succession and substitution.
29
Some of these objects played a specic
role in the temporal dynamics. They marked breaks or transitions between distinct
phases of the activity; they heralded the disappearance of one kind of representation
(e.g. a table comparing various solutions and which is put aside) and its replacement
by another (e.g. the sketch of the design solution). The change of object
corresponded also to a change in representation language and of meta-cognitive
statements (cognitive activity about cognitive activity, e.g. developing, monitoring
and evaluating a plan of action) identied through conversation analysis.
30
However, outside of the situation where designers are co-present, intermediary
objects alone have no eect on activity phasing owing to their interpretive exibility.
This is why design oce heads can be seen to devote much eort to adding marks to
such objects so that they do have an eect on phasing and temporal structure (which
is, in fact, invisible and linked to project management).
Finally, equipping acts as a framework. It is used to dierentiate between public
objects, which can circulate inside a more or less open space (the drawing saved to a
shared database), and private objects (for their authors use only or shared inside a
26
Collins, An Empirical Relativist Programme in the Sociology of Scientic Knowledge,
1983.
27
Vinck and Jeantet, Mediating and Commissioning Objects in the Sociotechnical Process of
Product Design, 1995.
28
Blanco, Rough Drafts, 2003.
29
Blanco, Rough Drafts, 2003.
30
Gre gori, Etude clinique dune situation de conception de produit, 1999; Brassac and
Gre gori, Situated and Distributed Design of a Computer Teaching Device, 2001.
Engineering Studies 39
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very limited group of identied persons). Inscribed on the intermediary objects (e.g.
signatures and marks of validation), this qualication links them to specic spaces
where they circulate. The shifts between one space and another are frequent. Actions
performed on personal objects might prepare the way for actions performed in the
common space. Conversely, new objects circulated in a shared space are reproduced
and appropriated by some of the designers who transform them into private objects
with annotations. For design oce heads and project managers, equipping
intermediary objects is a way to dene and control their circulation spaces. Because
the marks equipping these objects belong to a nomenclature, they set up an implicit
infrastructure that underpins their circulation.
From controversy about object equipping to the creation of spaces of exchange
The necessary equipping of objects so that their ontological status can be modied
and they can be converted into evidence or enabled traces, keeps engineers concerned
and busy.
As a process, equipping involves adding something to an object (its equipment),
so that its properties are modied. However, not all intermediary graphic objects
produced in the eld are equipped in this way. Without equipment, the object is
sometimes qualied as private and personal. As we saw through the observation
work performed at the CERN in Geneva, some engineers implied that such
unequipped objects should not exist because if they were to fall into the hands of a
colleague, this might result in an error. Taking this fear even further, the head of the
design oce suggested that any object, even the simplest screen-shot printed out for
personal use only, but then forgotten in the printer, should be equipped with
minimal meta-data: a date, a number and the name of the person responsible for it.
The problem, for the head of the department and for the designers, is that
intermediary objects sometimes move around too easily, escaping the control of their
authors. The facilities oered by certain computer tools, for example an easy-to-
print-out screen shot function, have contributed to the disappearance of certain
traditional types of equipment: the culture of nomenclature and archiving
(equipment that used to be systematically added to graphical objects), embodied
in technical draughtsmen when drawing boards were still being used, is also tending
to disappear, generating new problems in terms of intermediary object qualication,
status and circulation. Over the course of our eldwork, the question of equipping
roughs was observed to be often raised leading to substantial disagreements between
engineers on account of the diversity of their personal working practices.
The way the object is actually equipped is also at the core of working discussions.
Sometimes, the designers add specic equipment to the intermediary object to
change its status (e.g. from rough to evidence). But some computer-assisted design
tools themselves also produce and automatically add certain equipping features to
the intermediary objects. Sometimes these are out of line with engineerdesigner
practices. Thus, the debate not only concerns the need to add equipping features;
sometimes the problem is deciding which features are unnecessary and can be
skipped.
All of these problems stem from the fact that the equipping of intermediary
objects confers on the objects a certain amount of authority. The equipment runs
the risk of giving authority to an object for which such authority is not initially
intended (it might be used as a reference or in a binding manner when it should not
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be), for example a design used to illustrate or clarify an idea. It often happens that an
engineer prints a view for him/herself, or in order to be able to talk about it with a
colleague. This poses a problem when the circulation space is extended and the
object moves out of the designers private space or the space formed by a trusting
relationship between colleagues and into a singular exchange framework. Thus, the
question of equipping is also closely linked to the space of exchange between
engineers; it concerns the inscription of the action in a work group.
Dening the right equipment
Our eldwork drew attention to the question of equipment owing to the controversial
relations between engineers about this point. A whole series of equipment/equipping
issues were observed in everyday engineering. These concerned the references added to
technical drawings, the numbering of objects, the nomenclature of parts, the tools used
to produce traces and the invisible infrastructures
31
underpinning the spatial
organisation of objects and associated practices, standards and other distinctive
markings or aordances. Equipped in this way, the intermediary object is enrolled in a
considerably larger assembly. Once equipped, it materialises and transports an
invisible infrastructure within the interaction. This is made up of standards, categories,
classications and conventions specic to one or several social worlds.
Intermediary objects are artefacts that move from one actor to another or around
which several actors gravitate. In some cases, they help link heterogeneous social
worlds when structural elements (associated with an object or a set of objects) are
partially common to several social worlds. This is the case, for example, of inter-
professional symbols, technical drawings drafted according to a graphic language
that is common to several professions or sets of data organised in relation to an
agreed structure.
32
In these cases, the intermediary object reects a more or less
invisible infrastructure. There are two primary cases: either the object or the
collection of intermediary objects is built in compliance with structuring elements
(e.g. a parts list, a code and formal language), or the object is equipped with
additional elements that confer new properties upon it, notably because they enable
the object to be enrolled in an area of exchange that is itself equipped with an
invisible infrastructure. Whatever the case, there is a minimum recognisable
structure inscribed in the object, on the object or in the collection, which can take
the form of additional equipment.
Sometimes, the controversies observed also concerned the fact that there was too
much equipment. This might stem from the designers of new working tools or be
inherited from a collective professional past. In such cases, the engineers might ask
to be able to act in more open spaces, where exchange is freer and less equipped.
They denounce object equipping when much of this leads to conict, due to
incompatible numbering systems for example. Such a situation occurs, in particular,
31
When an intermediary object is equipped it is inscribed within an infrastructure and it then
enacts that infrastructure (Mol and Law, Regions, Networks and Fluids, 1994). See also:
Bowker and Star, Sorting Things Out, 1999; Bowker and Star, Invisible Mediators of
Action, 2000.
32
Laureillard and Vinck, The Role of Graphical Representations in Inter-Professional
Cooperation, 2003.
Engineering Studies 41
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at the frontier between several social worlds, each bringing with it its own
equipment.
The equipment is imagined (in the sense of being dreamed up), manufactured,
tweaked, tested and negotiated by engineers. It is therefore continually being
redened. The problem facing the engineers is the proliferation of intermediary
objects. They wonder how these objects should be dierentiated, qualied, archived,
organised and associated with practices and specic circulation spaces. This problem
is felt individually, as each engineer is faced with the proliferation of versions made
possible by digital tools. However, the question of equipping comes to the fore more
especially when the objects are exchanged and circulated between technicians and
engineers. The work of equipping intermediary objects is thereby closely associated
with the collective action space. From this point of view, it is fundamentally
sociological and anthropological for it concerns the foundation of social exchange
and not just a simple technical rationality associated with the activity.
The outcomes of dening the right equipping features are: (1) the control of the
information circulation space and of the uses of intermediary objects through the
denition of their status, their authority and the trust designers can have in them; (2)
the freedom left to the designers when they are exploring provisional solutions and
the exibility of the activity. Thus, engineering also appears to be an activity
consisting in dening the right equipment because this has an inuence on the
design dynamics as a whole. This activity is a collective one consisting in negotiating,
transforming, testing, de-constructing and stabilising the equipping features. Every
group or individual has a point of view to defend regarding the right equipment, due
to their specic position and history. Of all the engineering activities, the denition
of the right equipment is the most cross-cutting and the one most related to the
shaping of the work collective.
Conclusion
What have we learned about engineering and about those involved? Their work
transits through multiple intermediary objects. They invest much in these objects and
their details as if their engineering activity depended heavily upon them. These
objects also reect the characteristics (habits, values, objectives, traditions of
thought, etc.) relating to the technicians and engineers who authored them. Thus, the
dierence between technical aspects (the object being designed) and social aspects
(the engineers) is neither easily identiable nor particularly relevant. The drawings,
calculations, notes and prototypes oer an indication about the individuals and their
work collective (with its inherent compromises, conicts, power struggles, etc.), while
the individuals themselves are also a kind of instrument (used to calculate and to
draw according to a set formalism and rules). Furthermore, the characteristics and
status of the objects, like the individuals, constantly change over the course of the
engineering exercise.
Looking at these multiple and ordinary intermediary objects (and not only the
most sophisticated and specic engineering tools) shows us the engineering activity
and its social world. It demonstrates, among other things, negotiations and subtle
shifts between private and public spaces and activities.
One of the key results highlighted in this article relates to the activity surrounding
the production and engagement of intermediary objects, i.e. their equipping.
42 D. Vinck
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The equipping work, as collective activity, relates to features to be added to
intermediary objects so that they can be enrolled in the space of exchange between
actors. It is potentially linked to the notion of invisible infrastructures.
Intermediary objects are not only at the centre of actions and actors concerns;
how they are equipped is a recurrent subject of controversy and collective
engagement. In a given situation, actors devote time to imagining, developing and
negotiating the way in which intermediary objects should be equipped. This is
precisely so that they are able to circulate inside more extensive spaces and within
heterogeneous worlds. The notion of equipping prevents us from thinking that the
characteristics of mediation and of translation are attached to the nature of the
object alone. Once equipped, the intermediary object enters into a space that is
suciently common to several social worlds. From then on, the minimum structure
recognisable by the members of dierent worlds stems from the way in which the
object is equipped, rather than the object itself.
Equipping intermediary objects has much to do with outcomes like design
freedom, provisory thinking and exploration versus control of the circulation space
and authority, and forms of use of the intermediary objects. The importance of these
outcomes leads the engineers involved to imagine and to negotiate the right
equipment. Engineering design activity is thus also a collective process of
construction, transformation and de-construction of the equipping features on
intermediary objects. Furthermore, this specic activity inside engineering design
seems to be the most important one in terms of the collective construction of work.
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