Development of an online collaborative working environment for design and manufacturing

............................................................................... . VII Acknowledgement .......................................................................... IX Publications ............................................................................ X List of Figures ........................................................................... XII Chapter 1 Background and Introduction 1 1.1 Background of the research. 1 1.2 Introduction of the research 4 1.3 Aims and Objectives 6 1.4 Structure of the dissertation 7 Chapter 2 Research Methodology 11 2.1 Importance of Research Methodology in this research 11 2.2 Essentials of this research 13 2.2.1 Outline of the research concept 13 2.2.2 The research challenges 14 2.2.3 The system architecture 15 2.3 Research methodology and stages in this research 16 2.3.1 Consideration of the research methods to be taken 16 2.3.2 Research stages 18