Enabling distributed communication of manual skills

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to inform the development of mixed initiative systems for distributed digital communication of manual skills. In particular, manual skills that are essential in project production paradigms such as engineer‐to‐order. Design/methodology/approach – Findings from survey research, which included literature review and interviews with practitioners, are reported. Literature review investigated media, strategies, and computation relevant to distributed digital communication of manual skills. Interviews investigated attitudes among industry practitioners towards distributed digital communication of manual skills. Findings – Communication media, instructional strategies, and computational semantics techniques are available which can be integrated to address the limitations of human communication of manual skills. Research limitations/implications – Only ten organizations were involved in interviews investigating attitudes towards distributed digital communication of manual skills. Practical implications – Manual skills will continue to be important to project businesses involved in the production, refurbishment, and/or maintenance of large engineer‐to‐order products such as public buildings and process plants. The limitations of human communication can be addressed by using a variety media, such as augmented reality headsets, to enable new instructional strategies, such as just‐in‐time training. Further, combinations of media and strategies can be integrated with computational semantics in the development of mixed initiative systems which provide feedback as well as initial instruction. Originality/value – The originality of the research reported in this paper is that it addresses a full range of enablers for distributed communication of manual skills. Further, an overview of computational semantics is presented which does not rely on prior specialist knowledge. The value of this paper is that it introduces a framework for enabling distributed communication of manual skills. In addition, a preliminary ontology for distributed communication of manual skills is introduced, together with recommendations for implementation.