AN INVESTIGATION OF THE INFORMATION FLOW BETWEEN DESIGNER AND SUPPLIER

The overall objective of the project is to understand and model information flows and relationships between Engineering Designers and Suppliers. In order to achieve this it is proposed to obtain case study material from a variety of industrial contexts. It is then intended to classify and model these information entities, dependencies and flows. This will be based on the IAD (Information Access Diagram) and Petri Net Methodologies. This will be used to create a browsable interface for the display and access to design relationship networks and associated information entities. The work will also be extended to deal with the notions of risk and uncertainty reduction and emergence within the design information flow process.