A Case Study of Co-Design in the Brazilian Automotive Industry

The Brazilian automotive industry has faced major transformations in the last few years. Companies have adopted new strategies to manage the product development process in order to reduce project lead-time and increase the number of launches. This paper aims to present the findings of an exploratory study of the adoption of the co-design strategy in the power train product development of a Brazilian automaker. The principal evidences were: supplier involvement reduced the time taken for the product's development, change of roles in the automaker/supplier relationship and the lack of clear methods to select suppliers to become product development partners.