Distributed product development as a core element of supply chain management

The design of distributed product development processes is a core element of supply chain management. The approach of collaborative engineering, which is discussed in this paper, supports companies to integrate their suppliers efficiently. Besides technical challenges, organizational aspects have to be faced to guarantee a successful industrial application. Considering shipbuilding as an example, the main challenges of distributed product development are described, industrial requirements on collaborative engineering concepts are pointed out and an actual research project on this topic is introduced.