Network-based product- and process-management for product development ? Model-based solutions

The paper argues that an optimization of product development processes can be achieved through detailed description of the relationships in the product model as well as the relationships in the design and production process. This is especially true under rapidly changing market conditions when the design process is not only determined by the design task but by constant outside change requests that potentially impact product structure and process structure following external requirements, market, competitive situations, and from organizational ad hoc reactive internal and external organizational change in the increasingly open and flexible process "network", which leads to frequent demand for updates of product structures, development processes, and production processes and the way on how these processes are interrelated and interdependent, thus networked. These aspects require novel approaches to describe processes and products with which we are able to identify interfaces between components and functions and to make these interfaces available for the design process in principle and the specific project management.