A Risk-based Global Coordination System in a Distributed Product Development Environment for Collaborative Design, Part II, Application

This is the second of a two-part paper introducing a risk-based global coordination system in a distributed environment for collaborative design. Part I represents the basic concepts and a theoretical framework, and this paper describes a practical application in a National Science Foundation/George E. Brown, Jr Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation. Core concepts, theoretical framework, and methodology developed in Part I are demonstrated through a collaborative design project. When an experiment is to be conducted, multiple stakeholders distributed at different geographical locations are required to work together, to achieve a desired experimental design, both individually and as a group, regardless of personal preference. A risk-based global coordination mechanism with a local risk assessment approach provides a quantitative base for negotiation and coordination among multiple, distributed stakeholders. The case study shows that globally consistent, quantitative risk analysis with considerations of all stakeholders’ assessments provides a basis for them to understand each other better and help build up consensus for success of the collaborative design project.