Integrity validation for object versions in a co-operative design environment

Due to the evolutionary nature of the engineering design process it is necessary to provide support for version management. The version model should be provided with an integrity checking mechanism to assure the consistency of object versions with the design constraints. Managing integrity constraints is complex due to their evolving nature and raises a number of issues that need to be dealt with. We present a conceptual framework for providing an integrity mechanism for object versions. The framework is based on the concept of the Constraint Version Object (CVO).