Conflict detection and resolution in distributed design

Abstract

As an increasingly common feature, design of today's complex products and services utilizes distributed collaborative processes. A key factor in the effectiveness of the design processes is conflict management, since conflicts result mainly from designer interaction. Effective support of the design process needs new approaches, from input of specifications to generation of the design documents. These new approaches need to support functions to identify, avoid, and solve conflicts throughout the design process. The research presented in this paper describes a particular approach to conflict detection and resolution in collaborative design processes. The solution proposed lies within the guidelines of e-Work established at the PRISM research group at Purdue University, in that of providing both autonomous agents and active protocols for the distributed design process. The developed Conflict Detection and Management System (CDMS) allows testing for conflict detection and resolution by providing a collaboration interface for the distributed designers. CDMS implements straightforward methods on an Intranet of personal computers platform for detecting and solving the conflicts that otherwise would result in a longer design process. The system also implements a simple learning mechanism for selecting components to include in the design. Experiments performed with CDMS show that product complexity and number of participating designers have a statistically significant effect on the ratio of conflicts solved to conflicts detected, however, only product complexity has a statistically significant effect on design duration.

Keywords:

• e-Work
• collaboration
• autonomous agents
• protocols

JOSÉ A. CERONI is an Assistant Professor of the School of Industrial Engineering at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile. He received his PhD from Purdue University in 1999, and his current research interest include parallelism modelling in production systems, models of coordination and collaboration of distributed production systems, and application of information and robotics technologies in manufacturing systems. He has published chapters in the second edition of the Handbook of Industrial Robotics, edited by Professor Shimon Y. Nof and articles in the International Journal of Production Economics, the International Journal of Industrial Engineering, and the 14th, 15th, and 16th International Conference on Production Research.

ALVARO A. VELÁSQUEZ is an Instructor of the School of Industrial Engineering at the Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile. He received his bachelor of science in Industrial Engineering from the Catholic University of Valparaíso 2001, and his current research interest include methods for conflict detection and solving in distributed design and application of information technologies in Industrial Engineering.