Support system for different-time different-place collaboration for concurrent engineering

To be effective in practice, concurrent engineering requires access to and organization of knowledge accumulated over time, product versions, and customers. More important, separate knowledge resources have to be shared and coordinated over space and time if successful design is to be accomplished. The authors, address the nature of communication in design, especially across disciplines, and the support systems that facilitate better communication. While a lot of research effort is being expended on same-time communications within a group, they consider, as well, the need for, and the problems associated with, different-time, different-placed communication. they present these views in connection with an on-going development effort, n-dim