An integrated design environment for early stage conceptual design

Conceptual design, the preliminary phase of design in which both well-defined problem specifications and high level design solutions are developed, is becoming increasingly important as design complexity increases. In spite of the importance of this activity, few tools exist to support this phase of design. In this paper we present a systematic and flexible model of conceptual design and describe how this model has been employed to realize a prototype conceptual design process management environment, called Clio II