A constraint-based design risk management tool for design collaboration

This paper proposed a constraint-based Design Risk Management (DRM) tool for the improvement of design decision-making under a collaborative product environment. This tool is developed by incorporating collaborative design features, risk management process and theory of constraints (TOC). The research is focused on: 1) exploration of various design constraints from all possible design variables, 2) identification of critical design variables as design risk factors for design management and decision-making, and 3) evaluation of design risks as a project risk based on Bayesian theorem. This tool has been prototyped to show that design managers can use this tool to gain overall design risks during a product design process for their decision-making and meanwhile it enables other designers (or in general team members) to involve in this risk management process and provide first-hand information on dependency of risk factors, the possibility of the risk-happening and the severity of the risk factors. This tool realizes the upstream risk management strategy so that the decision-making for risk mitigation has a reliable data/information support.