Rapid virtual enterprises in product development

With new demands on the product development process major changes are taking place. Products of higher complexity are to be developed in even shorter lead time. To match these demands the very experts have to cooperate with a very high level of knowledge exchange. With this the need for concepts and methods rises that allow cooperation even beyond organisational borders. With the approaches of "Rapid Virtual Enterprises" (RVE) the idea of almost instant constitution of structures is supported, that make collaboration possible in a scenario of highest time constraints. While collaboration is already feasible within company borders at present co-operation among different companies needs thorough preparation. Most importantly the constraints of the cooperation, as well as the different workflow processes in the rapid virtual entreprise have to be defined before the RVE can start operation. In this paper necessary actions to properly define and constitute a rapid virtual enterprise are presented as well as demands on specific tools for the support of the operational phase. Thus the product development process can be accelerated and improved utilizing the knowledge and specific expertise of different partners already at an early point of the development process.