Design management in CONCORD: combining transaction management,workflow management and cooperation control

摘要

Design management is an encompassing task supporting cooperativedesign processes entirely. This requirement can best be fulfilled byexploiting concepts from transaction management, workflow management andcooperation control. On the one hand, each of these areas must beadapted to the field of design, while on the other hand, the necessityof an adequate interplay of these components reveals multiple facets ofinteroperability. The CONCORD (CONtrolling COopeRation in Designenvironments) processing model faces all these problems and allows astraightforward mapping of the processing structures predominating indesign and, thus, serves as a cooperative and interoperable processingmodel for CAD frameworks, e.g. the PRIMA framework, our testbed andprototype system. The major contribution of the CONCORD model is toenhance design flow management by cooperation control facilities. Designflow management controls design tool applications and the interplay oftools, and supports the user in fulfilling his/her local design goal.For that purpose, it covers both transaction processing and workflowmanagement. Cooperation control, in contrast, handles the interplay ofcollaborating designers or design tasks. In this paper, we report on thecapabilities of the CONCORD processing model, thereby focussing onimplementation aspects. The feasibility of already approved transactionconcepts and workflow management as implementation basis is investigatedand discussed by drawing relationships between design andtransaction/workflow processing