Design rationale for computer supported conflict mitigation during the design-construction process of large-scale civil engineering systems

The development of large scale engineering systems requires the collaboration of numerous specialists. Their decisions reflect different perspectives of a project and these different perspectives typically lead to many conflicts. These conflicts, if not resolved early, create more expensive designs, delays in the design-construction process, and compromises in the final product. Thus, a fundamental issue in collaborative engineering is conflict mitigation. A set of case studies suggests that some of the conflicts during the process stem from the lack of information that certain specialists have about other specialists' objectives and reasons for rejecting or accepting a given alternative (i.e., design rationale). Yet, if the design rationale of all participants is made available to others, designers can become overwhelmed with data and its complexity. Thus, there is a pressing need for systems which help designers capture, interpret, and easily utilize this data when conflicts are detected. This thesis presents research on the representation, use, and communication of design rationale for conflict mitigation in a collaborative environment. This research is based on the view that: (1) the designers' perspectives are expressed in their design rationale; (2) a system for capturing the design rationale needs to represent and manage design intent evolution, artifact evolution, and relationships between intents and between intent and artifact; (3) a design rationale system needs to capture its information in a non-intrusive manner by providing part of the design rationale; and (4) a system for conflict mitigation needs to provide active computer support for the negotiation between multiple participants. Based on these requirements, this work develops and demonstrates DRIM (Design Recommendation and Intent Model) as an ontology for design rationale, and further develops SHARED-DRIMS (SHARED-Design Recommendation and Intent Management System) as a system for conflict mitigation in a collaborative environment. Testing of both the model and the system have been limited to small-scale problems dealing with conceptual design. The approach is potentially extensible to apply throughout the life-cycle of large scale design-construction problems. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)