Transiting Between Product Development and Production: How IT in Product Development and Manufacturing Integrate

Abstract

One crucial moment in product development is when all specifications of a product are ready, and the start of production is imminent. Companies very often have a milestone gate at this point where the development project is signed off and approved making sure that everything is ready and handing it over to the production department. This is a crucial moment involving checking a lot of information that has originated from different departments in the company. It can result in errors since the checking often is done manually and based on that staff check and report the results to a central function managing the transition. The situation is worsened by interoperability problems between different IT systems and databases used for different purposes in the company. In this paper it is examined how an automotive company currently is conducting the handover, gathering and checking all specifications before start of production. Risks of mistakes and unnecessary time loss are identified. In the paper it is discussed how the integration can be improved and the amount of manual work reduced. Results indicate that there is a potential for both saving time and reducing risk of error by automating parts of the handing over and integrating the IT systems and databases.