A methodology for design coordination in a distributed computing environment

At the conceptual stage of the design process it is increasingly common that analysis tools are involved in the evaluation of a large number of alternative designs. Designers use such analysis tools to assist with large scale concept evaluations and the prediction of good initial designs. Consequently there exists a need to coordinate these analysis tools to enable the early stage of design to be performed in a timely and efficient manner. This paper describes a generic methodology that allows the management and coordination of design analysis tools. A Computer Aided Design tool, namely the Design Coordination System (DCS), has been developed to assist the designer in performing computational analysis in a distributed computing environment. Within the DCS, a collection of design agents act as members of a multi-functional team operating in a cooperative and coordinated manner in order to satisfy the objective of efficiently performing the design analysis.