THE INTERPLAY OF CONTEXT, PROCESS, AND CONFLICT IN CONCURRENT ENGINEERING

Naive interpretations of concurrent engineering may expect extreme parallelization of tasks and simultaneous accommodation of multiple perspectives. In fact, from our efforts at modelling tasks in a MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) pressure sensor design project, it appears that the structure of tasks and the product itself result in evoking contexts and scenarios of decision and data-flow that have a significant impact on the occurrence of conflicts among perspectives and mechanisms for their resolution. This paper refines a previously described information model for defining evolving contexts of product model aspects, and team member perspectives, with software agents acting on behalf of team members to execute tasks. The pressure sensor design project is analyzed in the framework of this information model. Alternative scenarios of decision and action for design of the pressure sensor are modelled as design process plans. The impact of contexts and design plans on the occurrence and resolution of conflicts is investigated. Conflicts between perspectives occur in supplier-consumer data flows, interface definition data flows, and shared output data Rows during execution of these plans. We present a technique far negotiating such conflicts by axiomatic negotiation models using analytical mechanisms. Negotiation protocols based on these mechanisms propagate utility functions between decision parameters and conflict parameters, and explore the space of agreement points so as to suggest negotiated solutions.