1

C OLLABORATIVE D ESIGN
1.1. INTRODUCTION
Collaborative design enable designers located geographically in various parts of the world through
Internet tools. The designers may be of different knowledge domains and located at disparate
and geographically far and distant places, anywhere around the world. The participation in
product design must take place in real time as well as off line simultaneously or concomitantly.
The need for collaborative design has arisen only in the last decade and due to two main reasons.
First reason is to adopt the modern concept of design for product life cycle in order to reduce
the lead times of new or redesigned products. This is of great importance and has a valid
connection to the current scenario of globalized economies. Lead time is the total duration of
time from the ideation of the product to the actual introduction of the product into the market.
In the olden days, customers were much more conservative, brand conscious and were complacent
to use the same Cinni or Usha fan repeatedly over the years. Even if the first fan failed, the
customers would again purchase the product of the same brand. This was because there were
not many manufactures in the market to drive the competition and quality forward. In contrast
to that, in the current markets, customers have been offered with an array of options of high
quality products to choose, in any product category. The companies have already begun to think
about themselves as placed in a global market and are enthusiastically vying to produce better
quality and less costly products to stay in the market. This has lead to what is called dynamic
markets, in which the customers tastes keep changing fast because the customers are now
habituated to upgrade or change their needs at a much more rapid phase. This has necessitated,
in general, a need for lesser lead time for any product. If the lead time is high, the idea will die
away and cease to be relevant to the customers tastes even before it can see the light of the
market.
In collaborative design technology, the designers need not physically meet at a meeting
place to participate in the design of the product. They can give their contribution by sitting in
their office room, using their desktop computer both in on-line and off-line modes. This has enabled

Product Design and Manufacturing: A Product Life Cycle Approach

to design by use of computer software that works on client-server communication model. A

simple collaborative design environment (CDE) may employ the paradigm of one server and
multiple clients whereas fully developed and efficient CDE may employ multiple distributed
servers and multiple clients paradigm. Both the CDEs have extensively benefited from the
recent developments in networking technology and the techniques of designing multi-user
software. The idea of dotcom business may have failed in the late twentieth century but
the efforts put by various companies and consortiums have taken the web based technology
ahead by leaps and bounds. All those developments are now paying dividends in an indirect
way.

1.2. SIMPLE COLLABORATIVE DESIGN ENVIRONMENTS

The main challenge in building any CDE is to capture the design semantics, design decisions
and record them in the most authentic way. When two designers sit face to face, to design a
product, the communication between them constitutes the so called design semantics. It could
be speech, written or drawing based communication. A well-built CDE should be able to capture
that communication in most realistic form, as truer to the face-to-face communication.

1.3. DESIGN SEMANTICS

With respect to the above discussion, on how effective is the collaborative design methodology
vis--vis the face-to-face brainstorm, it has become necessary to distinguish between two different
types of information exchange. Those parts of total communication that serve to describe actual
design decisions are termed as design semantics. These design semantics have justifications of
design decisions, and properties associated with performance and behaviour of designs.
Undocumented design decisions and vague design descriptions, on the other hand can lead to
misunderstanding and confusion in the collaborative development of a design. Therefore, all other
parts of the total information exchange are termed as non-semantic information. Having defined
these terms, it is now clear that an ideal CDE should maximize the design semantics and
minimize the other types of communication.
Whenever a new collaborative design workbench (CDW) is designed, the efficacy of which
can be described in terms of the percentage of design semantics it finally permits. Such capturing
of design semantics, in different CDEs, has been demonstrated with different data models by
various researchers.

1.4. OBJECT ORIENTED DATA MODELS

In the objective oriented model of CDE, the information is integrated by means of certain
structured framework named as design prototype, which represent the information relevant
to design. In this approach, each class of design objects are characterized by its function,
behaviour and structure. The project data can be stored centrally and accessed by separate
programs. For example, the part being designed may be modeled by the constructive solid
geometry (CSG) approach of solid modeling where the relevant Boolean operations constitute
the structured framework. As long as the CAD system is used, any designer is capable of
exceling CSG modeling paradigm and the information exchange can have no awkward transition
virtually.

Collaborative Design

1.5. COLLABORATIVE DESIGN WORKBENCHES (CDW)

In this methodology, a client-server paradigm is implemented in which the client software resides
on the designers computer and either simply allows snapshot images of the part in the required
orientation or may allow full list viewing options for the solid model. The client software also
supports a toolbar that can enable the designer to embed textual, graphical, speech and video
information to be embedded on the top of such snapshot views by proper linking thereby capturing
multidisciplinary interpretations of the design. All the data in this model also is again stored in
the central server to be shared by the designers globally located. Certain workbenches employed
third party CAD model viewers, which permit rotation of the object also. Normally, one of the
neutral formats such as IGES, WRL, STEP etc. are used to store and play the part information.
In CDW, a computer-based design environment, the shared workspace has an electronic
and distributed space. Some of the issues that are taken for granted in a shared physical
workspace, such as access to the person who produced the design idea or the familiarity of informal
or formal group meetings, have to be carefully considered when the workspace is a distributed,
electronic representation. Initially, when the designers begin to collaboratively design the part
on the workbench, each has own understanding of the part design and possible solution
methodologies. However, the shared or overlapping quantity of such understanding among all
the designers forming the design team for that part is small in the beginning. As the time passes
and collaborative design continues, the portion of this shared information should grow rapidly.
The faster it grows, the more efficient is CDW. The components of a CDW address the concept
of shared understanding are information sharing, communication media, process management,
and exploration space as shown in the Fig. 1.1. These can also be described as functionalities of
the CDW which we will discuss one by one.
Information
Sharing

Communication
Media
Collaborative
Design
Workbench

Process
Management

Exploration
Space

Fig. 1.1: The basic framework of CDW showing the four components or functions

Information sharing requires that the CDW should support representation and access of
shared design information to each of the participant and their respective computer applications.
Communication media represents shared workspace that can be evaluated by number of modes
in which the communication among designers is possible. One mode of communication is the
exchange of design information generated among designers. In order to ensure consistency,
designers have to refer to this information, to update their own solution states. A second mode
of communication is the informal exchange of ideas through conversation, gesturing and rough
sketches. The focus in this view of the shared workspace is on the visual interaction of the
designers and the graphical representation of the design solution. The process of planning,

Product Design and Manufacturing: A Product Life Cycle Approach

managing and controlling design activities has been identified as a key requirement for the
development of computer-integrated design applications. Process management function of the
CDW includes management of information into various versions or the software coding thereof,
management of the server, installation and maintenance of the client software on designers
desktops, management of the accent control system, networking and security issues. The
management and administration of the CDW should be carried out in a way that the designer
faces little problem in the process of his full participation. One of the most inefficient process
management is denial of access to certain portions of the design information to the designer.
This may result in undue delay in design decision making or poor quality design semantics,
which makes a debated designer to hardly focus on his work.
The CDW should also be so designed as to serve as an exploration space for new ideas
than merely making available a record of various versions of the design as it proceeds through
the various stages of collaborative design. The function of exploration space is to expand
possibilities of new design solutions and even misunderstanding of others opinion as catalyst for
nucleation of new ideas. For example, any suggestion on revolving of a new chair being designed
can lead to multiple ideas for creative chair as either oscillating about a horizontal axis or
revolving about a vertical axis. Similarly, for another example, suggestion of a remote nature
of function of a robot being designed for welding in toxic environments can lead to multiple ideas
such as like the robot being controlled by a remote controller or virtual reality controller or the
operation being conducted in a remote environment or in an airborne vehicle.

1.6. HOW DESIGNERS COMMUNICATE AND DOCUMENT THEIR DESIGNS

Protocol studies, aimed at finding out how much more and what type of design semantics are
documented in a CDE as compared to computer aided design carried out alone by a design
engineer, were carried out in the past by Maher [1] in a CDW of their own named as Computer
Mediated Collaborative Design (CMCD). In order to bring out specifically the active documented
justification for a decision, or function or purpose of a physical component, which are named as
design semantics, the textual information embedded on the design is treated as documented
semantics and graphic information is treated as documenting the physical component. The
experiments conducted, by allowing designers A and B to carry out designing a product DP1
individually first and then a different product DP2 having same complexity as DP1 in CDW,
showed that the design semantics that were expressed in the collaborative design were not as
much more as expected in comparison to individually carried out design. Two reasons were found
to be responsible for this.
Firstly, current CAD systems with all of their emphasis on spatial geometry take up all
the time and attention of the designer in dealing with the spatial geometry of the product. That
results in much lesser opportunity and fewer tools for the designer for recording design semantics.
In a CAD system, the designer associates attributes with a CAD element or object and in a
whiteboard environment the designer uses the text tool. These tools do not provide any structure
to the design semantics and they do not encourage or facilitate the documentation of design
semantics. Secondly, designers tend to document less information in a collaborative session than
when they are working alone because they can describe the design semantics verbally or orally
to the other designers. From this point of view restricting those tools that permit direct verbal
conversation on the CDW can give better results because then the designers would be forced to

Collaborative Design

type the same in textual form or embed them as a audio link, thus resulting in more design
semantics. The intensive information exchange via audio-video conferencing between the parties
during a CDW session would rather result in a valuable amount of the semantic information
that is properly documented. Video conferencing only allows meetings to take place while the
participants are in remote locations, but does not provide any additional facilities for recording
or formalizing the meeting and hence is not suitable for collaborative design. This is because
the designers describe their design semantics verbally, through video and audio channels, and
this information is not included in the final design document. To be able to record and extract
this information, a CDW tool should be able to provide means for keeping track of designers
activities, indirectly forcing them to record the semantics that stand behind their design solutions.
If properly put to use through appropriately designed CDW software, the existing highly powerful
and fast computer media not only can allow us to document more design information, but also
can give the opportunity to keep the whole design documentation in electronic form, available
for further use and processing.

1.7. A DATABASE CENTRIC COLLABORATIVE DESIGN WORKBENCH

Designing a new product that is found out to be in compliance with the latest needs of the
customer in the twenty first century is more of a task of linking the design knowledge of the
existing products to the newer needs of the customers rather than designing from level zero or
scratch. This is because design engineers have at their disposal a huge amount of design knowledge
of various kinds of products among which the features of one to another do not vary too much.
The sheer magnitude of this knowledge base demands, for easy retrieval and storage, a
systematically conceived database management system that is specifically designed for design
knowledge. In addition to that, this database must be integrated with a well designed collaborative
environment wherein designers placed at globally far and distant places can communicate with
each other to undertake the design of the products. The whole system must be woven around a
widely accepted engineering design methodology to be technically and practically sound. The
entire design, manufacturing and measurement processes can be integrated into a single
workbench. This section has focus on the design database and its structure for typical mechanical
engineering products and the collaborative design environment. The database was built in the
MS Access and the collaborative design workbench was built in the Visual Basic and Visual
C++.
Engineering design methodology has attracted widespread attention in the recent years.
The primary reason for this increased attention is the ability of the design decisions to affect
the quality of the product. Moreover, the cost of redesign to maximize quality can be prohibitively
high in the traditional life cycle of a product in which, the market survey to know the requirement
of customers is followed by initial conception of the shape and size of the product, then by the
material selection, then by stress analysis to arrive at the safe dimensions, then by prototype
manufacture, then by testing. During the first stages of the design, often the product is designed
from scratch with features that do not vastly vary from most other products. Most product
features are similar and hence this old method needs change.
In the past few decades as the theory of engineering design has developed, variations of
the above methodology were proposed. In the methodology proposed by the classical work by
Hubka [2], the Spiral of Progress improves the completeness of information of the design as

Product Design and Manufacturing: A Product Life Cycle Approach

the design process progresses from problem

assignment to finally the assembly drawings. The
Market Survey
possibility of the Spiral of Progress retracting back
due to some design decisions being found erroneous
Initial Sketch
or unviable at a later stage is not taken into
account. Nevertheless the last stage of the
Shape Design
analysis-synthesis-evaluation approach by Hubka
[2] was to suggest any redesign to be effected.
Material Selection
Such possibility was first hinted in an earlier work
[3] in which a two-dimensional view of design
Stress Analysis
progress was enunciated. The vertical series of
activities indicate the phases in the life cycle of
Dimensional Synthesis
the product whereas the horizontal set of activities
indicate the problem-solving process that may take
Prototype Manufacture
place at many stages of vertical dimension. This
concept was much developed in the model of Pahl
and Beitz [4], where the possibility of upgrading
Is Functionality
Satisfied?
and improving the design at all stages was
emphasized. A complete description and discussion
on various engineering design methodologies
Can Take
proposed in past is given in [5]. The importance
Service Loads?
and necessity of a design workbench that can
enable design of a product collaboratively by a
design team whose members are globally dispersed
Assembly
was already brought out [6, 7]. In an industrial
Friendly?
environment where the manufacturing lead time
has to be minimized, each new product cannot be
designed from scratch. Moreover, it is very sensible
Finalize the
to utilize the knowledge information of previously
Design
designed similar products. This is practicable if
the information is properly stored and made
possible to be easily retrieved. A systematic
Fig. 1.2: The current design procedure
procedure should be used for storage and retrieval
process of design information.
Thus, design of each new product or new version of the product involves a lot of repetitive
and redundant work. During the manufacturing of the prototype and testing, many errors
are found in the product, either from the point of view of manufacturability or assembly. It
may even be with respect to lack of ultimate conformity with the service requirements. All
these kinds of errors necessitate redesign. For redesign, the part drawing has to be redirected
back to the design team that tries to understand the viewpoint of the shop floor engineers
and tries to correct the mistakes in the design. This kind of flow of the part drawing between
the design department and the shop floor may occur many times before a satisfactory product
is finalized and concluded to be produced in the necessary quantity. The traditional design
methodology is what is shown in Fig. 1.2 sans the redirecting arrows. In a manufacturing
environment where the lead time is to be minimized, the traditional design methodology is
hardly in place.

Collaborative Design

1.8. DESIGN REPOSITORY

The design repository is a very important component of the Collaborative Design and
Manufacturing Workbench (CoDMaWb), which is a model CDW developed by the first author.
Unlike the usual database where information pertaining to a given entity is stored in fields and
records which can be of different types (integer, character, boolean etc.), a design repository has
to be constructed in a different way. Here we need to store designs. A CAD model is the
representation of the design. It is essential to identify the distinguishing features of the product
and develop a code in the name of which each feature of the products design is stored. There
are many methods of coding parts including those suggested by group technology. The design
team can develop its own coding method. In any case, the coding system should ensure that
no duplication occurs and that the code can be computerized. The designs, in the form of
CAD models, reside in the design repository on the computer memory disk and the interface
between the database system and the repository is through the code. The general layout of
this system is given in Fig. 1.3. In what follows, the design repository is exemplified through
screen snapshots of CoDMaWb.
Design
Repository

Database
System
(MS Access)

CAD Package
(Pro/Engineer)

Executable
Front End and
GUI

Design
Engineer 3

Design
Engineer 1
Design
Engineer 2

Design Team Globally Dispersed

Fig. 1.3: The general layout of the CoDMaWb

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Product Design and Manufacturing: A Product Life Cycle Approach

The front ends main menu, which was created in MS Access shows two options. The
designer can choose any category or ancillary applications. The parts button takes to the list
of the various products whose designs are available in the repository.
The different parts of the designs which are stored in the repository can be the screw,
bearing, nut, bolt etc. if the design being carried out is of a mechanical system.
What is important is to identify the distinguishing features of each part that can uniquely
yet completely define the part. For example, the pitch diameter, pitch, material, type and length
are features for screws. The code developed for screws should contain information of the values
for all these features. If the type of screw is not changing, only pitch will differentiate between
various screws in the parametric geometric design. This aspect must be properly taken into
account while building the code.

The Access forms for some sample parts are shown below. They are bolt, nut and screw.
The present workbench allows for updating the database for each category of parts with respect
to their respective part features.

Collaborative Design

11

Thus, in addition to building the initial database of parts, the database can be updated
whenever a new design that is not similar and not derivable from the existing drawings is
encountered. The CAD model of the part should also be stored in the repository with the same
code. The get figure button enables retrieval of the CAD model in a CAD package depending on
the format it is stored in. Pro/Engineer and IGES were used in the present workbench.

Whenever a new product is to be designed, retrieving the design that is nearest to it from
the repository is not any easy task. This is because there is rarely an exact match in the
database. Therefore, some kind of grouping and coding are required.

1.8.1. Grouping the Machine Elements

The component coding for the purpose repository maintenance for future design requirements
can be done in two methods. The first method is named as static method and the other can be
named as functional method. The static method of extracting the characteristic features has
long been practiced even since the fundamental principles of group technology and computerized

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Product Design and Manufacturing: A Product Life Cycle Approach

cataloguing have been introduced. In static method, the components are grouped according to
their static features such as shape, size and weight considerations. For example, one simple
classification of components is rotational and prismatic parts, which is based on the general
shape and more minute features such as hole, slot and keyway etc. are not taken into
consideration.

The second method of grouping components is based on its function in addition to static
features and hence, it is named as functional method. The superiority of functional method
over static method can be understood by distinguishing between a super-elastic ball and a lollipop.
Leaving out the stick in the latter, both are essentially spherical, almost equal in size and weight.
But the functionalities are different. Since functionality affects a whole lot of design decisions,
including material, manufacturing methods, packaging and shipping methods, it is very
important to observe that static features are insufficient information with respect to which the
components can be stored.
The functional method of grouping of components can be based on the following component
features:
(1) Dependent functionality
(2) Dependent mobility degrees of freedom
(3) Material related characteristics density
(4) Prime mover
(5) Size, weight and shape constraints.

1.9. JAVA BASED EXPERIMENTAL MODEL OF COLLABORATIVE

DESIGN WORKBENCH
As experimentation towards a versatile CDW that incorporates modern ideas and some new
ideas we generated, collaborative design of a product and the corresponding mediation among
the designers involved has been systematized through a web-based tool that we called as
collaborative design workbench (CoDMaWb). Instead of using existing INTERNET based tools