Editorial

Successful collaboration in product development teams can be attributed to numerous strategic, technical and social factors (Littler et al. 1995, Lam and Chin 2005, Koutsikouri et al. 2008, Ostergaard and Summers 2009). This special issue on ‘Comprehending Factors Influencing Cooperative Product Development’ focuses on four factors: labour flexibility; data sharing in discipline spanning global environments; vendors' integration; the influences of pressure. Underlying this special issue is the belief that success of collaboration in product development efforts is the province of comprehensive understanding of influencing factors, including these four factors. In ‘Labour flexibility: Impact of functional and localised strategies on team-based product manufacturing’, Fraser examines the relationship between two labour flexibility strategies (functional flexibility and intra-cell flexibility) and their impact on team effectiveness and team performance. The author considers labour flexibility and effective team working to be among the most sought after properties in today's dynamic and competitive manufacturing environment. The article describes the empirical study undertaken to explore: (a) if labour flexibility strategies (functional and intra-cell flexibility) have any impact on team processes such as communication, conflict resolution, problem solving, goal setting and performance management, and planning and task coordination; (b) if from an ‘output’ level, labour flexibility strategies (functional and intra-cell flexibility) have any impact on team performance. The main finding in this study is that functional flexibility indeed had an overall stronger, significant effect on team processes than did intra-cell flexibility. The study also found that functional flexibility improved team outputs in areas such as customer delivery, inventory holdings and quality. Fraser argues that findings from this research indicate that moving employees or operators around the department of an organisation or around a plant performing different jobs or operations may in fact enhance the ability of these people when working in a team environment.

In contrast to Fraser's paper, ‘A contribution to engineering data sharing in discipline spanning global environments’ by Anderl, Völz, Rollmann and Lee deals with the challenges of data sharing in interdisciplinary and transnational teamwork. According to Anderl et al., the interdisciplinary challenges include different approaches to work and pattern of thinking, different terminology and communication styles, interface challenges, lack of information flow and the challenges stemming from the use of different software tools and data formats in different disciplines in collaborating teams. On the other hand, challenges in transnational teamwork arise from the fact that global teams often speak different mother languages (such that subtleties are often not caught in foreign languages), have different cultural beliefs, have different focus on skills (mirrored by education and working attitudes) and are geographically dispersed and often live in different time zones. As an attempt to deal with the challenge of ensuring smooth communication and information exchange in interdisciplinary and transnational teams, Anderl et al. propose a strategy for communication that is supported by a new technical product documentation method, which also includes 3-D visual product data. An application example is provided to illustrate how the proposed strategy can be utilised during product development. The main conclusion in this work is that enhanced communication tools with, for instance, embedded interactive 3-D product representation and visualisation tools are more efficient and are central for effective engineering data sharing in discipline spanning global environments.

In ‘Integrating vendors into cooperative design practices’, Taner Eskil and Sticklen describe an approach to cooperative design using distributed, off-the-shelf design components. The idea is to enable the product developers to rapidly design their products and perform simulations using parts that are offered by a global network of suppliers. They introduce an architecture called Routine Design – Modular Distributed Modelling, which they consider as a conceptual framework that supports task directed, distributed routine design (RD) including simulation-based design testing. Taner Eskil and Sticklen chose to use the distributed routine design of a hybrid vehicle as an application example to demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed architecture. They demonstrated that a distributed RD platform is capable of supporting automated multi-attribute search for remotely represented off-the-shelf design components, design parameterisation by choosing suitable components for the design, integrating these components in an assembly, running simulations for design testing and publishing the approved design. The main conclusion in this work is that the proposed framework creates a platform that realises the potential of automated design that has been mitigated by lack of global access to design knowledge. Taner Eskil and Sticklen claim that the proposed framework enables design, virtual assembly and simulation of end products that integrate off-the-shelf components represented by remote supplier agents. With the proposed framework, they argue, a product can be designed and virtually assembled by taking advantage of a global network of suppliers and design alternatives can be evaluated without the necessity of non-disclosure agreements.

Finally, the focus of the paper, ‘Influences of pressure on cooperative product development’ by Pulm and Stetter, is on pressure and its consequences in cooperative product development. Pulm and Stetter analyse, systematise and interpret the phenomena connected with pressure. By using retrospective analysis of actively participating individuals and based on an extensive literature review and on logical deduction – the approaches that they argue can help to investigate the complicated phenomena of pressure, Pulm and Stetter explore the functions, causes and effects of pressure in cooperative product development. The main conclusion arising from their research is that pressure can be either an incitement or an abashment. Pulm and Stetter argue that pressure should not solely be understood as an undirected static pressure on individuals, but also as an incitement of the process, in analogy to a flow. They recommend that if successful collaboration is to be achieved, pressure should be dealt with and handled sensibly and consciously.