R. Banaresalcantara et Jmp. King, DESIGN SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR PROCESS ENGINEERING .3. DESIGN RATIONALE AS A REQUIREMENT FOR EFFECTIVE SUPPORT, Computers & chemical engineering, 21(3), 1997, pp. 263-276
An explicit record of design rationale is an important requirement for
effective design support. Such a record may be defined as the informa
tion supporting or explaining the decisions made by a designer when ge
nerating an artifact. Design rationale can be used to (a) improve the
documentation of the design process, (b) verify the design methodology
and the resulting design artifact, (c) provide support for the analys
is and explanation of the design process, and (d) enhance the re-usabi
lity of parts of the design artifact. This paper describes an extensio
n to KBDS, a prototype design support system for conceptual design of
chemical processes. The extension makes use of an IBIS representation
to record the design rationale and integrates it with the design histo
ry maintained by KBDS. Thus, KBDS-IBIS records in an integrated and pr
escriptive form the specification of the design artifact, the history
of its evolution during the design process, and the designer's rationa
le. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd