Research on a developing environment for computer supported collaborative work

Collaborative product development is an engineering process that involves decision-making through iterative communication and coordination among product designers throughout the lifecycle of product. In order to increasing openness and flexibility, a framework of distributed platform for collaborative design based on Web services and Agent technology is proposed. Web services are the foundation of system, and Agent technology is applied to accessing and updating information. Subsequently, the structure and communication of Agent is studied, and dynamic behavior of system is described and designed. Finally, deployment and achievement of a system prototype shows the feasibility of this method.