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by Beth Stackpole, Contributing Editor Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 11:00:00 AM   | Abstract: | Looking for new ways to improve communication and information sharing amongst extended design teams? Here's a checklist to get started. |
People have always been required to work together to build products. But the rise in global outsourcing and a cross-industry consolidation has raised the bar on collaboration, prompting manufacturers to look for new ways to improve communication and information sharing amongst distributed and extended design teams. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) suites, specifically the collaboration and lightweight viewing components of these platforms, are among the more popular tool sets being tapped to facilitate this higher level of communication. Manufacturers are looking to these tools as a means to include outside partners and internal non-engineering departments in the design process at an earlier juncture as way of getting products to market faster and generating efficiencies in their overall design processes. In particular, lightweight collaboration tools, a category dubbed Mockup, Visualization and 3D Publishing (MVP) technology, is poised to dramatically alter the manufacturing landscape over the next few years, according to market researcher Daratech Inc. (Cambridge, MA). MVP tools enable non-engineers to view and perform basic mockup work on product designs, without requiring CAD package know-how. Offered by many of the major PLM/CAD vendors, including UGS, PTC, Agile Software Corp. (which purchased visualization tool vendor Cimmetry Systems in February), Autodesk, as well as Adobe, MVP tools enable collaborative design teams to share a visual representation of a design with partners and people that go far beyond the engineering team. [Click to continue] |