Planning and execution support for design processes

This paper discusses concept and techniques supporting modeling, planning and execution of design activities in distributed design environments. The task of planning, executing, and supervising the design environments has become so complex that in itself requires advanced computer support facilities. We propose concepts which integrate design process models, knowledge representation schemes, and conventional decision support techniques. This integration is part of a larger framework for design decision support and consulting. In what follows, we discuss modeling of design processes, an architecture of a design process management system (DPMS), and design decision support. The DPMS architecture promotes highly autonomous execution of system designs. The system has been used in electronic design automation area. However, the concepts described here are applicable to other design domains.