RPS Research into Design: Supporting Multiple Facets of Product Development icord2009-chap 2004/12/27 537 1 EDUCATION OF NPD IN VIRTUALMULTI-X ENVIRONMENTS

Cost competitiveness, energy price, geographic dispersion of human, knowledge and material resources are forcing companies to outsource and spread the tasks among companies and partners all around the world. All these factors as well as emerging complexity of new products demand extreme exibility and coordination of all participants in any innovation project. Therefore, multi-x (multi-disciplinary,-cultural, etc) teams, with team members on different geographical locations, work often on the same project. Social, cultural and professional differences amplied with a lack of eye-to-eye contact, demand special technical and social skills of all participants. These skills are of the same importance as professional knowledge, which is necessary for project realisation, and include the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), virtual-team work, decision making, team management, conict management, etc. and especially their combined implementation in real projects. The latter is a skill, which should be taught and practiced on a case to achieve, and any educational institution, which is aiming to train competitive engineers, should implement this kind of work into educational process. To provide students with the knowledge and practice of multi-x team work an international course called European Global Product Realization (E-GPR) was launched in school year 20012002. Its main goal is to provide a stimulating learning environment for students in several disciplines (i.e. design, mechanical engineering, PLM, electronics, etc.), where they can get experience in multi-x collaboration in new product development (NPD) and develop several aspects of design competences needed for their future professional practice