Modelling the customer-supplier interface over the world-wide web to facilitate early supplier involvement in the new product development

It has been found from contemporary research in the fields of concurrent engineering and supply chain management that significant benefits can be achieved if suppliers are involved in new product development processes as early as possible. However, recent investigations in manufacturing industries have revealed that this approach of early supplier involvement (ESI) in new product development (NPD) is not widely practised. It has been a great challenge for researchers and practitioners to implement this approach in practice. One issue is about the lack of a customer-supplier interface appropriate for facilitating ESI in NPD. This paper proposes such an interface that is consistent not only with the customer's new product development process but also with the supplier's bid preparation process. This interface includes two models. One is the product-oriented model of a partial supply chain. The other is the common bid model based on design specifications for describing customer requirements and supplier capabilities. The proposed methodologies are demonstrated through a proof-of-the-concept web-based system on the Internet.