Rapid product development in a rapid virtual enterprise

With higher requirements on the development of products new approaches to fasten the relevant processes have to be applied. The Project "Rapid Product Development in a Rapid Virtual Enterprise" focuses on the acceleration of the product development processes for mechanical parts by providing tools and methods for rapid manufacturing of physical parts. The vision of the project is to accelerate the product development within the described scope by shortering time (increasing the speed) of the respective process chain, providing parts made of production materials and offering an increased flexibility in tooling technology. The main objectives are the rapid and efficient product realisation in heterogeneous, distributed environments, utilisation and integration digital techniques like CAD, FEM; Virtual Reality into Rapid Prototyping & Rapid Tooling processes, management and support of distributed development processes, and the design and manufacturing of parts and tools in low volumes