The formation of collaborative chains for conceptual design

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a collaborative and joint approach for the identification of partners and the formation of virtual enterprise for concept designing, without compromising design rights or proprietary knowledge. Besides, we introduce a framework for a Multi-Agent System model which is capable of supporting such an approach. The approach described in this paper enables the formalization of distributed processes which lead to the emergence of both conceptual design chains and functional architectures of an innovative product. © 2005 by International Federation for Information Processing.