Collective organization and innovation: case of fab Lab – ORCILAB

This project is a 4 years collaborative research project (PRC) meeting four French laboratories (PACT, GEM, G-SCOP, CRTD-CNAM) and a foreign laboratory (DRI Laval university in Quebec) with multidisciplinary skills (ergonomics, management, spatial planning, sociology, industrial engineering).
The international comparison will allow within the framework of a first study (WP2) to characterize the functioning of fablabs, their uses, from the viewpoint of the cultural contexts, from the viewpoint of the collective work and from the viewpoint of the produced innovations. We plan to make interviews (63) with the managers, the users (makers and industrialists) participating in innovative projects that will be identified in the partner fablabs (7).A literature review will complete this study to characterize fablabs in comparison to other solutions able to favour co-produced innovations (collaborative platforms, ideas labs, open source solutions). The second study (WP3) aims at realizing ergonomic observations of the real activities in fablabs (60 days) by analysing identified innovative collective projects.
The analysis of the activity will allow making a diagnosis of the collective forms of work favouring the innovation processes. Then, we will be able in a third study ( WP4) to accompany the design of 3 innovative collective projects (giving some recommendations on a specific organization, on artefact or on intermediate objects) thanks to simulations and experimentations (180 days) and to realize 18 interviews with the users about the results produced.

The results will produce the knowledge on the link between the forms of collaborative organization in fablab and kind of innovation by the fablabs users- especially by companies.
We have a lot of research questions: How the fab labs are different organization from other forms of co-design organization (ideas lab, open source, living lab etc.)? Do they generate more collaborative work and the collective construction of heterogeneous actors? What are the impacts on innovation (transformation, design activity)? What are the results produced by fab labs?
Our results focus on the role of fab labs in innovation, as an issue of industrial future stimulmation, linked to several scientific barriers and hypotheses:
1/ The practices of fablabs use depend on the fablab context. Study 1: Characterize fab labs compared to other co-design organization, their functioning according to the institutional and cultural building and according to the different kinds of projects. Study 2: Describe the innovation outputs related to the conditions and means offered by fab labs.
2/ The cooperation between heterogeneous users facilitates the innovation produced, especially in interaction with uses diversity. Study 3: Understanding the real work and collective activity in fab labs. Study 4: Transform collaboration to improve on innovation practices.

This project will better formalised the fablabs uses in favour of the coproduction of innovation, knowledge on the collective activity and the practices related to innovation.

Several publications in national and international congresses and papers are planned, as well as a workshop with companies and fablabs to provide them good practices (WP1).

This proposal integrates the axe 1: «Human, organization, technologies » for the challenge 3 « stimulates the industry of the future». The project aims at analysing and accompanying innovative collaborative projects in fab labs
More precisely, there is an evolution of the collective practices due to fablabs and we would like to study the corresponding innovations developed in those fablabs that are finally exploited by industrialists. For this, the uses of the fablabs and the interactions between heterogeneous users (makers, students, researchers, professionals, start-ups, TPE / SME, companies) will be analysed. Fablabs offers new forms of coproduction for innovations by giving a workspace, shared equipment, machines and skills within an open space. Based on the «do it yourself» principle, fablabs generate new innovation processes based on use/users. Indeed, in a fablab the user is the one who makes knickknack and takes initiatives. There is no need for a designer who has traditionally to observe a user to try to anticipate its future usage needs. Fablabs provide means to the users to launch their own innovation process and also possibilities to meet and share with other users (researchers, industrialists, civil society).
The objective of the ORCILAB project is to understand the existing links between the existing collective forms of organization in fab labs and the produced innovations (on product, process, method, organization or business). We will focus on fablabs that meet industrialists (companies, professionals, start-ups) and users / markers. The stake is to question the industry of the future by the production of knowledge about industrial innovations arisen from fablabs.
This project is a 4 years collaborative research project (PRC) meeting four French laboratories (PACT, GEM, G-SCOP, CRTD-CNAM) and a foreign laboratory (DRI Laval university in Quebec) with multidisciplinary skills (ergonomics, management, spatial planning, sociology, industrial engineering).
The international comparison will allow within the framework of a first study (WP2) to characterize the functioning of fablabs, their uses, from the viewpoint of the cultural contexts, from the viewpoint of the collective work and from the viewpoint of the produced innovations. We plan to make interviews (63) with the managers, the users (makers and industrialists) participating in innovative projects that will be identified in the partner fablabs (7).A literature review will complete this study to characterize fablabs in comparison to other solutions able to favour co-produced innovations (collaborative platforms, ideas labs, open source solutions). The second study (WP3) aims at realizing ergonomic observations of the real activities in fablabs (60 days) by analysing identified innovative collective projects.
The analysis of the activity will allow making a diagnosis of the collective forms of work favouring the innovation processes. Then, we will be able in a third study ( WP4) to accompany the design of 3 innovative collective projects (giving some recommendations on a specific organization, on artefact or on intermediate objects) thanks to simulations and experimentations (180 days) and to realize 18 interviews with the users about the results produced.
This project will better formalised the fablabs uses in favour of the coproduction of innovation, knowledge on the collective activity and the practices related to innovation. Several publications in national and international congresses and papers are planned, as well as a workshop with companies and fablabs to provide them good practices (WP1).