Controlling asynchronous team design environments by simulated annealing

An organizational strategy for design environments,asynchronous teams, is reviewed. Simulated annealing is used to implement the necessarycontracting search behavior of asynchronous teams. An example of an asynchronous team design environment controlled by simulated annealing is given from the building design domain. The simulated annealing algorithm used, which has been modified for distributed use and multi-criteria, non-preference objectives, is described.