Process-Centric Distributed Collaborative Design Based on the Web
Abstract In this paper, we discuss a distributed collaborative design for embodying concurrent engineering. The concept of a process-centric collaborative design is proposed to progress collaboratively an engineering design. It is implemented in the PEDWorks (Process-centric Engineering Design Workspace) as a prototype system for the Web-based collaborative workspace to integrate design activities in a distributed and heterogeneous computing environment. The PEDWorks has a client/server architecture, which consists of server applications such as a process controller, a design board, a communication server and a CAD server, and the client browsers with a Web-based process-driven user interface. We have conformed to CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) standard to support interoperability between distributed objects and have used JAVA to support cross-platform and distributed user access to PEDWorks on the Web. PEDWorks enables design teams to define the design process collaboratively, execute it in a distributed environment, share design information and communicate with each other.