The Future of Multidisciplinary Design Optimization: Advancing the design of complex systems

Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) is at a cross-roads; its future is bright but uncertain. While many of MDOs founders are still active and engaged in the community, the focus of MDO has shifted dramatically in the past decade as new faculty and researchers are finding new and novel ways to use and deploy MDO methods and tools to a wide array of problems. At the same time, some question the impact of MDO on industry – to what extent have MDO tools and methods transformed industry practices in the past 15-20 years? Government agencies are now emphasizing research in complex systems and their design, in which MDO can play an important role. Now is the time for the MDO community to examine its current practices and establish directions for future work in MDO and related areas.