Agile Process Engineering to support Collaborative Design

Abstract

The continuous adaptation and improvement of engineering projects with regard to methods and tools as well as single activities is rarely established in industry. Besides evolving of engineering projects, agile process engineering is of high relevance for the development of complex products in order to coordinate and control the activities of different engineering domains and local distributed teams. Sufficient communication and information transfer can only be assured if engineering activities (processes), methods and tools as well as qualifications and competencies are reflected and adapted to internal and external development contexts. This paper presents a concept for agile process engineering supporting collaborative design. The concept is based on the modeling of design activities and their continuous reflection by the involved engineers with regard to methods, tools or competencies. It supports identification of weaknesses to plan and implement adaptions of engineering projects. To initiate and coordinate reflections and adaptions a software-based tool serves as a collaborative working platform. This tool comprises a process modeling environment as well as a methods and tools database that can be applied as a knowledge base for adaptions.