Modeling collaborative design process with a socio-technical framework

Collaborative design is a fundamental activity in human endeavors in general, and in engineering profession in particular. Modeling the collaborative design process requires the consideration of both the technical and social aspects of design tasks. This paper presents an integrated and computational approach to model collaborative design process. It is based on the Socio-Technical framework which views design as a coconstruction process among all interested stakeholders in the design environment. A systematic understanding of the collaborative engineering design process is described, and the methodologies of depicting and handling the perspectives of stakeholders in the design campaign are discussed.