Collaboration software

Interactive product development tools are now widely available, and they can decrease design time and cost, improve quality, and help generate new business.

Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines col·lab·o·rate as “to work jointly with others in an intellectual endeavor,” and “to cooperate with the enemy.” Bearing in mind security concerns in engineering design, the two definitions may be combined as: collaborate-work concurrently with others on product development that is secure from unauthorized interference. However it is defined, collaboration is becoming increasing essential as companies struggle to improve their product-design-cycle times and integrate more effectively with their suppliers.

Collaboration tools can also have an unsettling effect on an organization. When communications are improved within a large, geographically diverse product development organization, the effect is an increased evaluation and acceptance of product change giving rise to a much greater frequency of design changes. This situation can easily spiral out of control without effective change management and tracking tools, which can then increase the workload of designers and engineers and sometimes slow them down. D.H. Brown Associates, in a report titled the “Shared Product Structure,” has studied this situation and concluded that effective use of design-collaboration tools highlights the need for a product engineering information architecture.