Designing and implementing a web platform to support SMEs in collaborative product development

Abstract

Research on the product development process lacks of investigation on the aspects related to its potential integration in a web-based collaborative environment, especially when considering the practical needs of Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs).Our study aims at investigating how is it possible to design and develop a web-based platform aimed at supporting SMEs in the product development process. On the basis of a thorough literature review and a mapping of the existing platform and tools available in the design domain, this paper describes in detail the development of a ICT platform, called iCommunity, which constitutes the backbone and the foundation upon which to build an ecosystem of innovation, that helps SMEs to: (1) manage the distributed collective intelligence in the new product development; (2) design and develop modular products in a collaborative way. The action research methodology has been chosen for its appropriateness to the characteristic of this study. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2013.