Communication Environment for Cooperative Product Development between Manufacturers and Suppliers

One of the major issues in product development is the time to market. For showing effective methods for speeding up the development process we use as an example the European automotive industry. The collaboration between manufacturers and suppliers is analysed. A communication environment, consisting of the network, hardware and software, is defined. Various CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) applications, which offer communication functions, are introduced. The described environment uses commercial products as well as prototypes currently under development. It will be tested by engineers working in the automotive industry in mid 1994.