Collaborative multidisciplinary decision making using game theory and design capability indices

The complexity of modern product realization processes requires collaborative work of engineering teams from different disciplines. We apply principles from game theory to model the relationships between engineering teams and facilitate collaborative decision making. In order to maintain design freedom in the early stages of product realization so that engineering teams in the later stages can adjust their decisions while still maintaining feasibility, we postulate the use of design capability indices to facilitate the teams making a ranged set of decisions, instead of specific ones. The effect of game theoretic principles and design capability indices on design freedom and therefore on the design solutions is also investigated. An electronic package design and analysis scenario is used to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2005.