REDESIGNING WORK PROCESSES AND COMPUTING ENVIRONMENTS

Technology is having a profound impact on the product development process today, allowing companies to do more work, faster than ever before, while giving them more control over their internal systems and processes.

The more things change the more they stay the same. This is certainly the case when it comes to the styles of many of the products we buy today - and the automobile is no exception. Consumer tastes seem to go through periods of practicality and nostalgia, followed by bursts of inventive fads. New body styles borrow lines and curves from past models, blended with hints of future lifestyles. Consumer opinions regularly are collected to find out what works and what does not work - as manufacturers cannot risk producing styles that are either too traditional or too futuristic.

To complicate things further, consumers are becoming unpredictable. They will lease an import luxury sedan at one time, and three years later switch to a domestic pickup truck. Trying to plan for these factors years ahead makes for a difficult challenge. As a result, new models tend to look rather similar and change slowly over time. It should not be expected that next-generation vehicles will look radically different from today's.