Distributed Constraint Management as a Basis for Team Design

D. Grecu and C. Broderick

Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work in Design (September, 2002)

In this paper we propose a model of team design integration centered on constraint management. We describe a diagrammatic constraint editor that allows designers to easily develop and maintain a shared collection of design constraints, and to explore the overall constraint and design space in order to increase their awareness of the overall design. We then demonstrate how a constraint solver can use the constraints and the design decisions posted through the editor to continuously verify project consistency, and how it can further support designers in hypothesizing and testing decision values in the overall project context before committing to them. Finally, we describe how the constraint management environment provides designers with information that supports the ordering of activities to shorten the design process and reduce the chance of failures.

System Diagram

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