Supplier-involved collaborative product development in PLM

Abstract

Increasing economic competition, globalisation and well-informed demand is constantly challenging companies. Past research efforts paid to supplier-involved Collaborative Product Development (CPD) mainly related on collaboration method, platform, tools and standards. Unlike the past, the performance of an enterprise now depends much on the performance of its partners in the value chain. To address such challenges, this study proposes a framework of supplier-involved CPD and a new method to analyse the collaborative scenario and interaction relationships. A new supplier-involved CPD framework in product lifecycle management is presented in details in this paper, which consists of three layers: Supplier Collaborative Business model, Supplier Collaborative Process model and Supplier Collaborative Operation model. The collaborative scenario and interaction is analysed using five processes, which are product planning, conceptual design, detailed design, design review and project management. A case study is demonstrated to show the efficiency and effectiveness of the framework developed in this paper.