英文文献及翻译(计算机专业)

NET-BASED TASK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Hector Garcia-Molina, Jeffrey D. Ullman, Jennifer Wisdom

ABSTRACT

In net-based collaborative design environment, design resources become more and more varied and complex. Besides com mon in formatio n man ageme nt systems, desig n resources can be orga ni zed in connection with desig n activities.

A set of activities and resources linked by logic relations can form a task. A task has at least one objective and can be broken down into smaller ones. So a design project can be separated in to many subtasks formi ng a hierarchical structure.

Task Management System (TMS) is designed to break down these tasks and assig n certa in resources to its task no des. As a result of decompositi on. al1 desig n resources and activities could be man aged via this system.

KEY WORDS : Collaborative Design, Task Management System (TMS), Task Decompositi on, In formati on Man ageme nt System

1 Introduction

Along with the rapid upgrade of request for adva need desig n methods, more and more desig n tool appeared to support new desig n methods and forms. Desig n in a web en vir onment with multi-part ners being invo Ived requires a more powerful and efficie nt man ageme nt

system .Desig n part ners can be located everywhere over the n et with their own organizations. They could be mutually independent experts or teams of tens of employees. This article discussesa task man ageme nt system (TMS) which man ages desig n activities and resources by break ing dow n desig n objectives and re-orga nizing desig n resources in conn ecti on with the activities. Compari ng with com mon information management systems (IMS) like product data management system and docume nt man ageme nt system, TMS can man age the whole desig n process. It has two tiers which make it much more flexible in structure.

The lower tier con sists of traditi onal com mon IMSS and the upper one fulfills

logic activity management through controlling a tree-like structure, allocating design resources and

making decisions about how to carry out a design project. Its functioning paradigm varies in differe nt projects depending on the project ' s scale and purpose. As a result of this structure, TMS can separate its data model from its logic mode1.lt could bring about structure optimization and efficiency improvement, especially in a large scale project.

2 Task Management in Net-Based Collaborative Design Environment 2.1 Evolution of the Design Environment

During a net-based collaborative design process, designers transform their working environment from a single PC desktop to LAN, and even extend to WAN. Each desig n part ner can be a sin gle expert or a comb in ati on of many teams of several subjects, even if they are far away from each other geographically. In the net-based collaborative desig n environment, people from every term inal of the net can excha nge their information interactively with each other and send data to authorized roles via their desig n tools. The Co Desig n Space is such an environment which provides a set of these tools to help desig n part ners com muni cate and obta in desig n in formatio n. Code sign Space aims at improving the efficiency of collaborative work, making en terprises in crease its sen sitivity to markets and optimize the con figurati on of resource.

2.2 Management of Resources and Activities in Net-Based Collaborative Environment

The expansion of design environment also caused a new problem of how to organize the resources and design activities in that environment. As the number of desig n part ners in creases, resources also in crease in direct proporti on. But relatio ns betwee n resources in crease in square ratio. To orga nize these resources and their relations needs an integrated management system which can recognize them and provide to desig ners in case of they are n eeded.

One soluti on is to use special in formatio n man ageme nt system (IMS).A n IMS can provide database,file systems and in/out in terfaces to man age a give n resource. For example there are several IMS tools in Co Design Space such as Product Data Man ageme nt System, Docume nt Man ageme nt System and so on. These systemsca n provide its special information which design users want.

But the structure of design activities is much more complicated than these IM S could man age, because eve n a simple desig n project may invo Ive differe nt desig n resources such as