| In distributed product realization, new paradigms and accompanying software systems are necessary to support the collaborative work of multidisciplinary engineering teams who have different knowledge, experience, and tools. Current research focuses mostly on the development of online tools, and software frameworks that coordinate these tools. However, a gap exists between coordination technologies and the methodologies facilitating engineering teams' decision making while using these tools. On one side, each team holds its own perspective towards the product realization problem, and each controls a subset of design variables and seeks to maximize its own payoff function. While on the other side, the interdisciplinary interactions tend to present additional challenges for teams to reach a consensus which is superior from the overall perspective. Therefore, the principal research goal in this dissertation is to develop the Collaborative Multidisciplinary Decision-making Methodology (CMDM) that bridges the gap between coordination technologies and decision making methodologies.; In this dissertation, four principal challenges are identified in the development of a collaborative decision making methodology. We construct clean digital interfaces between product realization activities, which addresses the challenge of information communication in distributed environment. We postulate game theoretical principles to handle coupled problems, which address the challenge of collaborative decision making in distributed environment. We then use design capability indices to help each team make a ranged set of decisions, which addresses the challenge of making a superior decision from the overall perspective. Finally we postulate the use of principles from utility theory to evaluate the weights of design goals, which addresses the challenges of assessing team's preference in the condition of uncertainties and risks. Therefore, a multidisciplinary product realization process is accomplished in a sequential manner without or with minimal iterations, wherein the final decision's superiority is guaranteed. Additionally, coordination technologies can be easily applied onto the independent activities, and facilitate engineering teams' collaborative decision making in distributed environment. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
