Enabling end-user participation in ship design

The globalized nature of the shipping industry poses challenges to a traditional set-up of a collaborative design and development team involving end-users. The present study explores aspects of end-user involvement and three different 3D models’ abilities to act as boundary objects in a ship design process. The preliminary results indicate that the evaluation methods and representations used in the study produced valuable design feedback. With relatively small means, the procedure supports the benefits of employee participation, contributing to a safe and efficient ship design and subsequent operation