*** 9703613 Lewis Chen Schmidt This award provides funding for the conduct of a three-year open workshop on decision- based design. The workshop will be conducted via a series of face-to-face meetings, conducted three times per year, and with continuing interaction between all interested parties via electronic and Internet technologies throughout the three-year period. Specifically, the workshop will include the development of a Web Page. A primary component of the workshop will be the continual, open development and dissemination of the philosophical, theoretical, and practical results of the workshop discussions and activities. The workshop will concentrate on a diversity of research efforts directed at the development of a theory of engineering design based on the emerging notion that engineering design is a process of decision making that is amenable to the myriad of tools and theories that have been developed in the field of decision theory over the past 200 years. If successful, this workshop will provide a new direction for research and education in engineering design. New theoretical concepts should lead to approaches to engineering design that will enable the design of better products: products that appeal more to their respective markets, cost less, have lower environmental impact, and which are more friendly for consumers in particular and society at large. These concepts are likely to lead to entirely new approaches to engineering education, with a new focus on engineering design as a process of decision making. ***
