Computer supported collaborative product development: a review

In the competitive world of the 21 century, companies must improve the way they develop products. Although concurrent engineering / integrated product development (CE/IPD) concepts are not new and revolutionary, achieving CE in specific situations is still a difficult task In fact the full concurrency may not be feasible, therefore the strategy on product development has moved to collaborative engineering and collaborative product development (CPD). This paper provides a comprehensive review of the recent R&D on CPD. The literature is reviewed from a number of aspects: system architectures, product modeling and visualization, process modeling and coordination, communication and collaboration, and implementation methodologies. Some R&D challenges and opportunities are identified and discussed. A particular focus is on CPD solutions for Small and middle sized enterprises (SMEs).