Cooperation in Aircraft Design

We describe how aircraft are designed in a large organization. We discuss the different phases of design and interaction with the customer. We then describe the models used by each specialist department and the interactions among departments during the design process. We observe that the main design choices are refinement operations on the design. We then briefly describe how the negotiation process is controlled by an organizationally agreed sequence of commitment steps. We then describe negotiation at higher levels in the organization. What decisions are made, the compromises worked out, and the effect of these higher-level commitments on the design process. We conclude that: (I) aircraft design proceeds by the cooperation of specialists (specialist teams or departments); (2) each specialist has its own model of the design, and may use several different models or partial models for different purposes; (3) specialists have limited ability to understand each other's models. They c...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1989
• Where: MITJSME
• Authors: Alan H. Bond, Richard J. Ricci
• Keywords: Design, Design Process, MITJSME 1989, Negotiation Process, Software Engineering