Electronic business in the product development process

Product innovation constitutes the focal challenge in the coming years. New media and in particular the rapidly expanding global communication networks and services are opening up considerable potential in product development processes. Electronic business - i.e. the comprehensive support of all business processes - is gaining importance in the industrial sector. This paper presents a new and comprehensive technical approach to the building up of electronic business applications in the area of product development, by means of which considerable improvements can be achieved as regards the acquisition and processing of knowledge and the product development-related processes of cooperation with component suppliers and development partners as well as clients.