Design and project collaboration are among the highest product development priorities for manufacturers, according to a new study by AberdeenGroup. Released by Boston-based communication consulting firm Seemage, the study titled, "The Product Lifecycle Collaboration Benchmark Report" concludes that companies are pursuing collaboration to reduce time to market and increase product innovation.
"Most manufacturers are using collaboration significantly to improve their product development processes, with over two-thirds of benchmark participants collaborating with internal departments and external parties, such as customers, and 3rd party engineering teams," says Jim Brown, AberdeenGroup's vice president of product innovation and engineering research. "Our research results show that manufacturers that have best in class product development performance are typically leveraging collaboration and collaborative solutions more than their poorer performing peers and competitors."
The report outlines communication processes that support improvements in the product development processes. "As product development organizations continue to become distributed and outsourced, customers will need to move beyond simple collaboration, finding new ways to express product ideas and related manufacturing and service functions related to their products," said Chris Williams, Seemage CEO.
To view the study visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30410367&cid=3192
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