The changing business and competitive environment requires firms to introduce new products more frequently and in shorter time. This also means that organisations have to be agile as well as responsive to the changing needs of customers. Therefore, for the design managers to operate effectively, it is necessary that there is a continuous availability of high quality information.
In the course of the CODESCO project a communication and decision support environment for project managers working in concurrent product development was developed. The environment comprises a methodology and a software system enabling and facilitating decision making in early development phases. Further, it includes communication support for ensuring the availability of information for the decision process and its follow-up processes.
This report summarises the approach taken and presents the results which were achieved. It provides useful easy applicable methods covering aspects in communication and decision support as well as their related software implementation. Being written in co-operation by the industrial, software and academic partners, the book aims to cover both the practical and theoretical viewpoint of the project.
This work has been partly funded by the European Commission through the ESPRIT Project N° 25455
CODESCO – A Practical Communication and Decision Support Environment for Managing Concurrent Product Development.
