Issues for integrating knowledge in new product development: reflections from an empirical study

With increased market pressures now imposed on companies there is a greater requirement for information and knowledge to be considered as fundamental resources; the need to rapidly provide high quality products of high perfor mance and reliability is forcing companies to change the way in which they manage them. The goal of this paper is to identify the pertinent research i ssues that will need to be considered in order for knowledge (and informati on) to be successfully integrated into future product development. This wil l be achieved by presenting the key findings from empirical and simulation studies of information and knowledge access in engineering design, within a number of different design activities. In particular, this will show the e xtent to which engineers rely on their personal knowledge. (C) 1998 Elsevie r Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.