Index

Why is the cooperation critical for the development of the product?
What cooperation requires
Unified structures (framework) for the collection of data
Consistency of the data
Free access to information
Structured access to the information
Propagation of the changes
Integration of the supply-chain

Why is cooperation critical for the development of a product?

In the product creation process, different professionals participate with various specific expertise. These people work in the development of the different aspects regarding the product.
In a perfect world, every person's work should be homogeneously mixed with that of their colleagues and the product should be the result of team-work. In real life, this hardly ever happens. In the development of a product errors increase costs. As it is easy to make a mistake and, naturally, high risks concur, many efforts are made to optimize communication within a work group.
Today, the tendency is to create a non-structured communication system for collaboration within and among the product development groups. Information is transmitted among the various group  members: the engineers must be able to talk to each other, the project manager must be able to speak to the purchasing office, and so on. Every team member has to be responsible not only for his principal function but he must be also an active member in the communication network. In this way, he is able to pick up, filter and send the information. Mistakes and oversights can cause damages and are not always negligible to such a system, thus, it is for this reason that energy should be focused in the retrieval of the right information and at the right moment.

Another problem deriving from this work model is the absence of a centralized storage system for information which should be shared among the various individuals of the work group. Every member of the work group works with their own version of the product data. Often the member memorizes the data on their pc, and so the data can possibly be incomplete and not updated when requested. This method of working could negatively influence the whole work group. The  unshared data represents insubstantial versions of the same information: therefore, an updated version in the development of the product in real time is unavailable. When these sources of fragmented data are finally and cohesively grouped at the end of the project process, the parts of information in conflict are often arbitrarily reconciled, causing delays, mistakes and often create a loss of data. This is underpinning for any form of collaboration within a project group. Without a definitive amount of shared data inside the group, the team members risk working without any solid information on which to base their work. While the correct information, decisions and authoritative data can be lost during the reconciliation of the individual data sources.
In the development phase, communication concerning product information normally occurs by Bill Of Material (BOM) produced on an electronic sheet. The reason for this is quite simple: data must be recorded on a flow sheet in the quickest way possible and these simple electronic sheets can do this perfectly. Unfortunately, the use of electronic sheets have their limitations, due to the ability to have only a simple snapshot of the data. This means that every single change introduced must be evaluated and manually related. Although, there are different aspects regarding a Bill of Material, as one particular can involve different data insertions for the same object. In the development phase, the use of electronic sheets involves continual manipulation, consequently overloading evaluation and implementation activities which involve the loss of resources from the primary aim of the design.

The necessity to establish more sophisticated and effective cooperative tools is strongly needed, in so much that many companies have introduced Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) products onto the market. But many of these solutions are only shy attempts of adapting pre-existing PDM/PLM platforms into a collaborative setting. Most of these attempts have poorly failed due to the enormous, and necessary, system reorganization to allow access to a closed system. It is quite common that these costs are directly transferred onto the customer. The result is that, to obtain a collaborative type of instrument for production development, the customer has to face huge efforts, consequent IT support activities, formation, maintenance and revaluation of the costs for a solution which fundamentally is badly adapted for the purpose.

Furthermore, the final and most relevant consideration regarding effective market cooperation refers to outsourcing. In many companies huge strategies are adopted with consequent financial benefits for the organizations adopting expansion choices in the service industry,  since a few activities are added, such as new capacities and expertise, to the internal product development resources. The involvement of external partners in any product development phase requires good collaborative practices, clear and well structured information and logically consistent communication with industrial activities. Although, for the small and middle-sized companies, but also for the big industries, it is an effort and a necessity which often represents an arduous challenge for them.

Collaboration is the key factor to increase competitiveness and innovation since it allows organizations to benefit both from central expertise as well as collective abilities. According to Business Week, the Yankee Group Research Inc. estimates that cooperation through Internet will save companies $223 billion during the next 5 years by cutting transaction, production and inventory costs.

Therefore, cooperation benefits are obvious, while evaluating how to obtain these benefits, in the best way possible, is not always clear.

What cooperation requires

A tool for product development must have key attributes to be considered suitable for collaboration.

Unified structures (framework) for the collection of data

Whatever the nature of work is, a collaborative group needs an unified structure for the collection of data, and in particular, for the memorization and organization of the information produced by the work group. Inside this structure, vocabulary definitions and common conduct procedures must be defined. The terms must be able to describe the objects and functions in a clear manner, so that they are intelligible to the work group. Whereas the data within the structure must be formalized by a logical model which anticipates consequent actions.

Apart from the manner on how information is treated within the data collection structure, the structure must be designed considering the group’s necessaries. Every individual must be able to execute key functions within the system’s structure and all the relative data generated by these functions must be "suitable". The CSCW products must be found and reused: key decisions must be memorized, conserved and transmitted to the whole group.

Besides collocating the different pieces of information and the various users, a successful collaborative environment should be also able to filter information depending on the individual necessities. A good parameter in the evaluation of these systems is the "signal-to-noise ratio". In other words, all the information which is received daily only part of it is really important. A good collaborative instrument must be able to increase the relationship between important information "signals" and unimportant ones, which can be considered "noises". Finally, a good collaborative setting must include some control concerning the way which information is distributed within the system, as well as monitoring what information is distributed to each user.


Consistency of data

Information contained in a collaborative system should not contain internal inconsistencies and contradictions. In a product development environment where information, deriving from many different sources, is collected, the consistency problem is critical. For instance, when different designers work on a particular type of data, they must refer to the same part number. If they use a different part number by mistake, they would introduce an internal contradiction to the system. This simple internal flimsiness could cause huge confusion.

A collaborative system must be able to strengthen the rules regarding data insertion and the way this data is introduced into the system, and so avoiding any casual corruption.

Free access to information

The graphic interface for data access is certainly very important but it is also necessary to consider some fundamental principles. In a collaborative environment, data must be freely accessible to all the authorized professional people. The data must be easily identifiable, locatable and accessible.

A second problem for data information access is that different users should be able to display the data according to their functional interests. The real filtering of uninteresting data and the free visualization of the right information will encourage people in the use of the system. A user will tend not use a system that will be useless to him in his work.

To be useful, a cooperative system must be properly used. A good graphic interface project, ergonomic and attractive, can even encourage more people to interact with the system during  work.

Structured access to information

The idea that accessed data must be checked does not necessarily contradict the previous point. That is to say, that data must be easily accessible and freely available. An organization normally wants to have data accessible only to certain people but not to everybody. Besides, it is risky and not correct to have every member of the group in a position to create or modify any form of information. Therefore, the following questions should be considered: "what information does an organization want to have visible to its users?" and "which users have the authority to modify or insert information"?
The circulation of information, that’s to say making information visible to group members, must be selective and well considered. The role each member has within the group can involve the partial possession of information which can be made available to the entire group. In product development, most companies prefer to give information maximum visibility to the majority of its users. This is motivated by the fact that they consider greater circulation of available information the better. It is not a good idea to have unnecessary business data easily accessible to complex work groups which incorporate external company members.

A collaborative system must be able to distinguish which users can access the requested information from those who can not only access but also modify it.

Propagation of changes

When data in a system changes, the updated information must be quickly made available to all the users. Most companies communicate the changes as follows: big changes are immediately communicated, while small changes are often not immediately available to the whole work group. Users need to count on a system to be able communicate and share all the changes in a safe and standardized way. Moreover, the system requires a completely satisfactory corresponding process in order to be able to make these changes in a valid manner.

Finally, the system must support the referential integrity: every piece of information changed should correspond to an immediate update.

Integration of the supply-chain

By definition, product development involves working with external suppliers. Mistakes in the supply-chain is expensive not only in terms of time but also in money. For instance, some specification changes made during the supply order preparation will certainly create some problems for the supplier. In order to avoid these problems, changes must be communicated to the supplier immediately. There is significant financial exposure for a company who does not communicate information to its suppliers in real time. It would be more correct if suppliers were treated as group members of the product development phase, with access to updated information about what they should quote and deliver. Furthermore, information should be easily accessible but not without restriction. In fact, every company has the right to protect its intellectual property and expertise.