A computational team approach for large-scale design problems

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One major challenge in large-scale engineering design stems from the coupling effect among design sub-problems that are handled by different teams.  For instance, in automobile design, design decisions from a chassis team can affect design decisions from a suspension team and vice versa.  Situations become even worse when one team unintentionally makes design decisions that will deteriorate the design performance of another team.  Facing this challenge, this research program intends to propose a computational team approach that streamlines the decomposition and coordination activities to formally address large-scale design problems.  This streamlined process should facilitate different teams to work synergistically for optimal design results.From this research, current coordination practice in engineering design can be shifted from an ad-hoc manner to a systematic approach.  This shift can facilitate the cooperation of teams to produce overall design results reliably and efficiently.  Then, the results from this research can assist a company in producing more fascinating products in a multidisciplinary, distributed design environment.  Ultimately, the development of computer software that guides team design activities becomes possible to benefit large engineering companies.