ABSTRACT
Informal alliances have been on the business scene as firms build relationships with trading partners, even for product design. What is new, and becomes part of a supply chain system, is the ability to link communications and cooperation across an end‐to‐end network and deliver innovative goods and services in record time and in a user‐friendly manner. The entry contains a figure showing roles trading partners and customers play in product design throughout the product life cycle. The author lists technologies that can enable design collaboration.
