Technology foundations

Abstract

The chapter focuses on the underlying concepts of concurrent engineering technology from the point of view of concurrent process expression and its actualization. It lays out the evolution of computing platforms and networking complexity that constitute the foundation of every distributed information system required for concurrent engineering. Network integration is the working foundation for computer-based approaches to concurrent engineering. Therefore, an architecture of a concurrent engineering system is presented from the point of view of evolving methodologies of remote method invocation. Within the architecture the integration of concurrent distributed processes, humans, tools and methods to form a transdisciplinary concurrent engineering environment for the development of products is presented in the context of cooperating processes and their actualization. To work effectively in large, distributed environments, concurrent engineering teams need a service-oriented programming methodology along with a common design process, domain-independent representations of designs, and general criteria for decision making. Evolving domain-specific languages (DSLs) and service-oriented platforms reflect the complexity of computing problems we are facing in transdisciplinary concurrent engineering processes. An architecture of a service-oriented computing environment (SORCER) is described with a service-oriented programing and a coherent operating system for transdisciplinary large-scale computing.