Design management additions to the Octtools environment

Research is presented whose aim is to endow the Octtools environment with a set of design management (DM) functionalities. Two fields needing intervention have been isolated, i.e. task distribution among designers and design methodologies. The main lines of the approach are described: DM objects are stored in the same format as design objects and DM functions use OCT procedures to access them. Some difficulties pertinent to the control of the adherence to valid methodologies are given