Abstract:

The paper proposes a collaborative design workflow management system architecture based on rules. It uses the expert system inference engine as the workflow processing mechanism. The facts and rules store in the inference engine’s knowledge bases. The task’s outputs and relation and prepared rules are the basis to inference. The paper discusses the architecture design, its key technology and implementation. The architecture provides a novel management and control model for complicated workflow.

Key words: project management;collaborative design;expert system;inference engine;workflow management