General issues on multi-agent system supporting the decisions in collaborative design

In recent years, with the modern computer technologies such as the intranet/internet, CSCW etc., the enterprises expect increasingly to realize the innovative product design and promote their design competence by collaboration based on the integration of the distributed resources, including the human beings, information and applications. So, collaborative design is becoming more and more an interesting and potential but a relatively new R&D topic. In this paper, a kind of multi-agent system based on the workflow ideas is proposed to support the collaborative decisions in product design. Firstly, the framework of such a system is introduced briefly, followed by the description of a specific agent model. From the viewpoint of workflow, our agent model is considered on the dimensions of role, process, and information. Correspondingly, the basic tasks for designing such an agent consist of organizing an actors network, predefining a multi-phase and collaborative process, and determining the sharing and exchangeable information. In addition, some issues on the general and specific collaborations in this context have also been discussed.