Systematic resolution of conflict situations in collaborative facility design

In this work, a new method to resolve conflict situations (Mcr) common in collaborative facility design using computer support tools is developed. The method uses traditional human conflict resolution approaches that have been used successfully by others. It incorporates principles for prevention of conflict perpetuation and escalation to improve design performance, and applies computer-based learning to improve usefulness. A graph model for conflict resolution is used to facilitate conflict modeling and analysis, one of the incorporated principles for prevention of conflict perpetuation and escalation. The performance of the new method have been validated by implementing its conflict resolution capabilities in the Facility Description Language (FDL), a computer tool for collaborative facility design, and by applying Facility Description Language for Conflict Resolution (FDL-CR), to resolve typical aforementioned conflict situations. The results found in this research are: (1) incorporation of principles for prevention of conflict perpetuation and escalation improved effectiveness; (2) implementation of computer-based learning increased usefulness; and (3) integration of conflict detection and resolution resulted in increased effectiveness of the facility design process. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.