Abstract
The presented work is concerned with the development of innovative strategies and tools for the management of collaborations between original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and suppliers in product development departments in automotive industry. The term "supplier" refers to system suppliers who deliver complex systems directly to the OEM as well as to component suppliers who deliver indirectly to the OEM. Due to rising product complexity, the need for collaboration in the product development of car components is still increasing. For instance, in the design of an automotive seating system for a certain model more than a hundred industrial designers, design engineers, project managers, accountants, and prototype experts need to collaborate effectively and efficiently in order to achieve the technical and economic objectives. Extensive work has already covered this area (Eckert et al. 2001, Kristjansson et al. 2003, Krystek et al. 1997, Link et al. 2001, Shaughnessy 1994, Wunram et al. 2003), especially in the field of collaboration in industrial production (supply/value chain management). However, in daily practice many problems on a technical, personal, and organisational level still hinder efficient collaboration. This paper presents a collection of strategies and tools which were found to support the collaboration management. Firstly, the results of an in-depth analysis of the product development are presented in section 1. Secondly, the strategies and tools that were collected and generated on basis of the analysis are described in section 2.
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