Co-ordination aided computational design

Co-ordination is an emerging area of design management as well as organisational theory and distributed artificial intelligence. This paper highlights the need for co-ordination within computational environments such as those related to computer supported co-operative work and workflow management. The key characteristics of co-ordination identified are implemented within an agent-based system aimed at aiding computational design. This system has been applied to an industrial case study involving a computational design process enabling more efficient use of time and resources through coordination.