Modeling Global Product Development Projects - The Idea of the Product Collaboration Information Model

An empirical investigation in product development shows that re-engineering processes have influenced organizational structures and operational processes due to the rising number of international development cooperation. Companies are faced with new challenges which have arisen in so called global product development projects: They have no experience in organizing global teams, no instructions in ingeniously using information and communication technologies (ICTs) in virtual meetings and no idea which technology should be used to support global product development. One key factor to cope partly with these challenges is to introduce standardized collaboration processes to get the information during the processes when it is needed. Another key factor is to analyze the organizational structures to manage global teams in a right way. However the core of product development is the three dimensional geometric model, which includes further information in form of metadata (following the idea of the integrated product model). This contribution aims to connect new organizational structures and collaboration communication processes in virtual work environments with a product collaboration information model. This three dimensional geometric model should integrate vital information for such global product development projects. This contribution will take into account the changes in organizational structures and operational processes and find out the role of the product collaboration information model in global product development projects. Furthermore this document describes an approach for modeling these three components which on the one hand should be part of the development process and on the other hand should give an advice for managing global product development projects