ABSTRACT
The need to effectively manage joint product development, referred to as codevelopment, between vehicle manufacturers and its suppliers is widely seen in the automotive industry as a means of ensuring business survival through reduced time to market, increased quality and reduced costs. However, effectively measuring the product development process has proved difficult within industry and academia. This is attributable in part to the absence of publicly available information, and in part to the inherent difficulty of measuring a complex process lasting 3 years or more. This is in contrast to manufacturing where significant amounts of information is available and the process is less complex.
