Computer-Aided Group Problem Solving for Unified Life Cycle Engineering (ULCE)

摘要

Unified Life Cycle Engineering (ULCE) is a design engineering environment in which the quality of a product is improved by integrating the consideration of the design attributes of producibility and supportability with the design attributes of performance, cost, and schedule. The ULCE program has traditionally focused on developing tools and techniques for a single designer to use to accomplish this integration. The goals of the ULCE program, however, are congruent with the goals of the current simultaneous engineering programs in industry, and industry uses multi-functional design teams to accomplish these goals. The authors assert that the application of computer-aided group problem solving technology to engineering design represents an unexploited opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of simultaneous engineering design teams. Thus, the authors recommend that the ULCE program broaden its focus to include research in computer-aided group problem solving techniques and tools to be used by design teams. To support the findings and recommendations, the paper includes a survey of both industry design team practices and computer-aided group problem solving methodologies and technology.