Design Project Optimization

This paper presents a quantitative algorithm that jointly optimizes diverse and interdependent decisions that shape a collaborative engineering venture of limited scope and duration. Planning decisions include product component and subsystem configuration; organizational participants and structure; processes of design, collaboration, and testing; and environmental elements including design norms, incentives, and facilities. We formulate project effectiveness and constraints in algebraic, domain-extensible terms, and integrate within the nonlinear optimization two established methods that originally addressed isolated problem aspects.