Management of Information Technology Driven Product Development Processes

The evolution of Information Technologies (IT) in general and Internet technologies in particular has affected all aspects of product development (PD) processes. In some instances these technologies result in speedy and more frequent communications within existing processes. However, in many more instances these technologies result in structural changes; that is, they necessitate changes in the organization and management of development processes. This chapter explores the notion of IT driven product development (IT-PD) from a process management perspective. It provides an argument for modeling IT-PD as a set of information driven productive activities. Some of the existing models for product development process management are reviewed in light of these structural changes. Emerging opportunities for IT-PD specific research issues such as supply chain coordination, design churn through synchronization, infrastructure investments, knowledge exchanges, management of productivity and learning are discussed.* * *Acknowledgement Many ideas in this paper were generated during our work with Daniel E. Whitney and Steven D. Eppinger at MIT. We want to thank the following MIT programs for providing research access and funding: LFM/SDM; LAI; and the Ford-MIT Collaboration project. The first author also wishes to thank Mr. George Orzel (Air Force Research Laboratory) and the Center for Enterprise Leadership at Boston University for their support. The authors would also like to thank Daniel Whitney, Stephen Rosenthal and Durward Sobek for providing invaluable feedback on a previous revision of this chapter. (Design Process Management; Information Processing View; Information Technology; Product Development and Supply Chain Management Linkage)