Manufacturing involvement in product development

In product development, communication and co-operation take on a greater level of complexity in that external subjects must be considered, such as customers and suppliers, and relations with the factory must be intensified to a maximum. Product development is an organizational process that tends to integrate with the whole firm. If product and process designs are on the way to being successfully overlapped, the factory is still far from being so. The importance of the manufacturing interface is increasing in the new product development process, especially in the car industry. Manufacturing is the last internal customer in the process. Communication and co-operation between product and process engineers and manufacturing staff suffer due to spatial distance, different languages, effectiveness and goals. Many contingencies in manufacturing are outside the design and engineering vision.