Constructing R&D Alliances in Product Development through System Engineering

International enterprises are increasingly contracting their mature technologies or non-core business to the areas featuring low cost and quality human resources, in response to which Taiwan enterprises can sharpen their competitive edge from two perspectives: focusing more on technical know-how research and development (R&D) and/or developing systematic products by integrating technologies from multiple companies. From the second perspective, the thesis comes up with a specific solution of creating R&D synergy by integrating enterprises’ technologies horizontally and constructing an integral supply chain system by fusing their resources vertically. For the purpose of this, it is advised to establish an R&D alliance and appropriate operation mechanism to coordinate various partners’ technologies and resources by means of system engineering to co-develop competitive systematic products. However, only through founding a joint-invested system design house to develop systematic products and synergize their power to maximize application of the jointly developed know-how can the alliance attain the value-creation stage. A general-purpose machining system of a virtual tool machine is taken as a typical case to explore the working process and the role the system design house and alliance members play in developing systematic products.