Content analysis of design practices

A database based on best manufacturing practices documents is explored relative to the "design" component of such best practices. This content analysis study yields lexical maps of key terms. Maps are categorized depending on their node arrangement in the following main groups: Cyclic maps, Sequential maps, Spoke-patterned maps and Isolated maps. A comparative study of names selected by different naming algorithms helps us in establishing the relation between map patterns and naming algorithms. Super network and distributions maps generated from the same database are useful in defining relations among the different maps. This study outlines the overall structure of design process through the maps' names and their interrelations.