A Game‐Theoretical Framework for Coordination in Requirement‐Based Engineering Design

Abstract

Requirement‐based engineering design is a common practice that provides a definition of what is the desirable design solution. However, requirements define what constitutes the acceptable design from what is not, and provide a little guidance on the best design solution. Requirement‐based engineering with team coordination, on the other hand, allows design teams to exchange resources to best manage their resources. This may lead to the better design outcome. This paper investigates the benefits of coordination in requirement‐based engineering design. We apply game theory to formulate mathematical models of design problem with and without team coordination and demonstrate the mathematical framework on an illustrative example. The results indicate that we may not always get the system‐wide best performance in the requirement‐based engineering design while coordination among design teams can reduce the total cost of the system. Also, the numerical results capture the relation between team's effort level and system's cost coefficient.