• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.337-346
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• 2013

A design collaboration system for a plant project is a set of complicated multidisciplinary processes in which a large number of various engineering fields are involved. Each subsystem is related to each other as they depend on information that other subsystems create, which leads to inefficient design iterations. This study presents an optimal design collaboration system for a plant project using Design Structure Matrix (DSM). Data regarding design subsystems, parameters, etc. were obtained by expert surveys and workshops. An automatic analysis program for DSM was developed using Visual Basic Application and Matlab to provide a partitioned DSM. A case study was conducted on a furnace project; consequently, the optimal design collaboration system with five crucial iteration groups was derived.