Chapter 2: Collaborative Product Development

Title: Enhanced decision making processes using ad hoc collaboration tools

Author(s): H. Stöckert, H. Gärtner, H. Hayka, R. Stark

Address: Technische Universität Berlin, Institute for Machine Tools and Factory Management, Pascalstr. 8–9, Berlin 10587, Germany | Deutsche Gessellschaft fur Luft- und Raumfahrt, Rutherford Str. 2, Berlin 12489, Germany | Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology, Pascalstr. 8–9, Berlin 10587, Germany | Technische Universität Berlin, Institute for Machine Tools and Factory Management, Pascalstr. 8–9, Berlin 10587, Germany and Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology, Pascalstr. 8–9, Berlin 10587, Germany

Reference: International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management 2009 pp. 73 - 83

Abstract/Summary: Intensive collaboration during product development processes is essential to improve product quality by robust decision making. Communication is vital to decision making processes and needs to be further supported by collaboration tools. Especially with today's outsourcing, reduced vertical integration and multinational design teams, early virtual design reviews are necessary and can be crucial not only for quality, but for the success of product development as well. A lot of factors determine the needs and requirements for collaborative engineering in context of supplier integration and overall product development. Product structure, company size, data confidentiality and budget restraints are just a few of them. Detailed investigations in the field of decision making in distributed design reviews have been conducted as foundation for the development of a design review concept which has been prototypically implemented in a software tool. The developed software supports distributed design teams in discussing design conflicts, positioning issues and CAD models in general. Due to the fact that standardised model data is used, collaborators do not have to work with the same CAD or PDM system. This paper describes the virtual design review and decision making in context of enhanced supplier integration, collaborative product development and the developed ad hoc cooperation tool.

Order a copy of this article