Partnership development between product customer and tool and die supplier

Abstract

Generally, the tool and die industry is acting as a tooling supplier for customers' product development. It is widely acknowledged that tool and die suppliers are now more than ever having to improve the cooperation or collaboration level with their customers to gain the tooling market. However, real cooperation or collaboration between product customer and tool and die supplier cannot be achieved before an appropriate partnership is developed. Moreover, the partnership needs to be adaptive to the changing market and requirement levels of customers. The purpose of the present research is to investigate adaptive partnership development between product customer and tool and die supplier through several steps. A set of performance measurements are defined to help the product customer evaluate the capability of tool and die supplier candidates. Different interfaces between product customer and tool and die supplier are analysed. How to develop the right interface structure for adaptive partnership between them is discussed. According to the rational early supplier involvement (ESI) methodology, the adaptive partnership requires the tool and die supplier to justify its role as an active partner along the entire product development process chain, and a decision model is established to specify the ESI partnership between product customer and tool and die supplier. It is suggested that the collaborative partnership be implemented through stronger integration of the tool and die supplier's know-how into the customer's product development process. It is hoped that this research idea can provide comprehensive support for partnership development and management between product customer and tool and die supplier.