It's almost redundant to use the phrase "collaborative product development" today. By definition, product development, for most manufacturers, is a collaborative process necessitated by widespread globalization and virtual operating models that rely on cross-functional teams, supply chain and technology partners, customers, and other stakeholders.

As the need intensifies to get better products to market faster while keeping costs in check, manufacturing companies must optimize their global design chains and manage the challenges associated with extended enterprises. That includes providing cross-organizational access to the same product information and protecting intellectual property.

"Product development collaboration used to mean something different [from] or in addition to product development alone," says Robin Saitz, vice president of solutions marketing at product lifecycle management software provider PTC. "Now, collaboratively is the only way you can do product development. The Internet has completely changed the way companies do business."

While every company would say it strives for effective collaboration, some examples from successful manufacturing companies are worth noting. In a recent study of top performing manufacturing companies — measured by how well they are able to integrate product innovation with operational excellence initiatives — AMR Research has identified among its list of best practices the need for cross-functional participation in new product development from the earliest stages of development.

In the case of Toyota, for example, the automaker ensures that manufacturing and supply chain personnel are involved at the outset of product development projects, actively contributing to planning around customer and technical requirements, AMR finds. In some cases, suppliers provide input as well. The idea is to ensure consensus on product and process design early in the development cycle, before production begins.

Another example AMR points to is mobile phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson. The company reduced time to market with its P900 Smartphone while ensuring that the device contained the features and design that customers were looking for. Marketing, product innovation, and supply chain teams worked together to optimize product profitability while focusing on customer satisfaction.

Team Tools

Modern technology tools that promise to smooth collaborative product development practices use the Internet to speed up processes that otherwise are slowed down or rendered impractical by traditional communication methods such as the telephone or e-mail.

Tools such as Autodesk Inc.'s Inventor 3D design suite and Alibre Inc.'s Alibre Design 3D design software include synchronous co-modeling technology that can help design teams in different locations using different systems to work on the same project with the same data. And visualization software such as PTC's Windchill Product View, ProductCenter from SofTech Inc., and Visual Components' 3DCreate can help make product information available to stakeholders throughout the enterprise and beyond, by standardizing data so that it's portable and meaningful to a variety of end users.

"For a long time, people have wanted to take engineering data and use it in other places, but the model for doing that hasn't worked," says Rix Kramlich, vice president of marketing at Right Hemisphere, a maker of visualization software. "It comes down to the need to take design data and make it act like business data — discrete bits of information that can be dynamically assembled and delivered based on how end users need it, whether they're building marketing materials, facilitating manufacturing process documentation, or working on MRO requirements."