Child restraint systems: an analysis of their development from an evolutionary perspective

摘要

This paper investigates how development of artefacts can be described as an evolutionary process. For that purpose, the development of child restraint systems is analysed and described in an evolutionary context by looking at the development of different types through time, the rise of dominant designs and the role of the environmental context or ecosystem in this development. Graphically, the development is mapped in a product family tree and related to the ecosystem in conjunction with which the artefacts have been developed. The evolving artefact and ecosystem prove to have a mutual influence on each other. Both systematic forces and coincidence influence their evolutionary path.