METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONCURRENT ENGINEERING AND DESIGN SYNCHRONIZATION OF MULTIPLE TOOLS

Concurrent engineering among multiple design groups is facilitated by maintaining design changes in a data model of a design being developed. Design changes for each group are made from a baseline design. Changes are tracked by maintaining change information from all but an owner of the original baseline design. Changes are synchronized by identifying owner and non-owner changes and merging the changes to produce a final design. Since non-owner changes are tracked, the baseline design is not needed in synchronization. Preferably the invention is applied to electronic designs made by multiple design groups at geographically diverse locations. The invention may also be applied to any system where configuration management of developed software, parts, or any design is needed.