TABLE OF CONTENTS New product development processes has led us to consider the design project management which is associated with two goals: on one hand the organisational and technical search for solutions, on the other hand the clarification of procedures and necessary means of setting up the project. These goals are to reached within the framework of a process, which can be characterised by two approaches: the traditional sequential approach and the concurrent engineering approach [MID 97]. The traditional approach, in which the project proceeded sequentially from phase to phase [TAK 86] (concept development, feasibility testing, product design, development process, pilot production and final production) and from functional team to functional team, was largely used in manufacturing industry but may conflict with today's competitive requirements: speed and flexibility. The latter approach, where the overlaps extend over several phases, is characterised by a project team that tries to develop new products using co-operative work and can respond more quickly to changing market conditions [CHA 97, TAK 86, CAR 91, SAR 97].
This processes can be described in two ways:
modelling the whole process using the perspectives offered by the domain of problem solving and knowledge needs [SIM 91, NEW 72],
concentrating on the identification and the analysis of the tracks and the evolution of the intermediate design objects (IDO) following A. Jeantet and J.F. Boutut [JEA 98]. They noticed that "the designers spend most of their time to create,...
