A Distributed Multi-agent Architecture for Collaborative Product Design

Collaborative product design is a complex and time-consuming process whereby geographically distributed designers from different disciplines cooperate and collaborate. Well-studied collaborative product design system reduces development time and creates better products. This paper discusses the characteristics of collaborative product design based on multi-agent technology to minimize the development time, cost and risk. In particular, the proposed agents can provide the interaction spaces for coordinating the individual design activities. Furthermore, the mechanism of intercommunications between agents is discussed. This research work constitutes initial effort towards optimization of process of collaborative product design. Future effort will focus on the software implementation of the theory presented in this paper.