Framework for modeling dependencies in collaborative engineering processes

This article describes an engineering process representation and modeling t ool. The approach is especially suitable for describing large-scale, mature design processes involving numerous tasks, same of which may be performed by automated computer agents. The underlying representation is a graph of i nformation-processing units with explicitly defined input and output featur e elements. We show that this representation is more complete than those us ed in previous process modeling approaches and overcomes some of their limi tations when dealing with design processes involving dependencies at multip le levels of detail. The representation is combined with rules for automati cally operating upon the graph to preserve consistency when traversing to h igher or lower levels of detail.