A model-driven decision arena : Augmenting decision making in early design

A wide variety of expert competencies, transcending traditional disciplines, are needed to foresee and evaluate the impact of decisions in the conceptual phase of engineering design. Where this previously was a trade-off regarding design and development of the pure physical artefact it is now a complex ambiguity game involving all disciplines touching a solution during its lifecycle, due to the movement towards integrated product-service solutions. Gathering the involved, normally diverse, group of stakeholders in a collaborative setting for design exploration exercises, sharing knowledge and values, is believed to augment decision making ability in early design. A model-driven environment for collaborative decision making is proposed as a solution that potentially may help harvesting these benefits. In this environment stakeholders interact with each other using digital models, model generated information, simulation data and product data collected in the field in order to evaluate design proposals by playing out potential usage scenarios and investigating cause and effect relationships. Initial work on conceptualizing, developing, and testing such an environment is done through a pilot study based on two industrial use cases. The development process iteratively unveils demands and constraints related to the environment. These discoveries go hand in hand with developing an infrastructure regarding both hardware and software as well as required human resources in a functional environment. Fully realizing the envisioned model-driven environment for collaborative decision making entails new ways of working requiring new knowledge as well as technological innovation. In that aspect, environment infrastructure and usage are elaborated on and direction for further research and development is indicated