Literature review of quality attributes for collaborative product development

Abstract

In collaborative product development, diverse stakeholders are involved in distributed engineering activities. This situation makes it difficult to ensure, manage, and improve the quality across company boundaries. Therefore, this work determines the characteristics of collaborative engineering which have an influence on the quality of distributed product development. Several interoperability frameworks were analyzed in order to get insights into key areas for collaboration design. Furthermore, a systematic literature review provided the best practices for improvement efforts. The derived quality attributes were condensed and adapted to collaborative product development in the four key areas of organization and processes, data/artifacts, information technology systems and infrastructure, and social factors. This enables product developers to examine their collaborative engineering environment and to identify room for improvement and to enhance quality. A case example of an engineering change order shows a collaborative data flow process, in which the quality attributes may indicate improvement measures.