Evaluating collaboration productivity in interdisciplinary product development

Abstract

Interdisciplinary collaboration is gaining increasing importance in product development. Today, products integrate various disciplines, which makes it more and more challenging to arrange collaboration efficiently and effectively. Emerging information and communication technologies have the potential to fundamentally change operations and increase the collaboration productivity. However, there is a shortage of approaches to assess their potentials in order to ensure sustainable implementation.This paper introduces a method for evaluation of collaboration productivity in interdisciplinary product development. First, the concept of collaboration productivity is explained and differentiated from concepts in other areas. Second, a target system for evaluation of productivity potentials related to emerging technologies is developed. The target system is supplemented by indicators allowing a measurement of productivity increases in different use cases. Third, a procedure model for the application of the developed method is presented. The method is applied to a case study from manufacturing industry.