Design Model Sharing in Concurrent Engineering: Theory and Practice

Abstract

The communication of design model data between participants of an engineering team is a fundamental subprocess in concur rent engineering (CE). The problems encountered in data transfer are abundant. It is understood that data transfer should be enhanced to ward knowledge transfer. Although it is possible to define what knowledge transfer is in general terms, it is crucial to specify it at the subprocess level; only then loss-less data communication can be implemented in practice. We, therefore, need to specify the conditions for successful data transfer subprocesses. In this paper we investigate which conditions are specific for CE. They are then formulated using the finite automaton formalism. From these conditions it can be concluded which measures should be taken in order to avoid data exchange problems and hence to support knowledge sharing. Examples are provided and an outlook to further applications is discussed.