RAPID PROTOTYPING - THE SWEDISH INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

The growing emphasis on timeliness as a competitive weapon has forced companies around the world to search for time-slacks and other possibilities to reduce lead times in the process of product refinement. In this respect, an especially interesting bottleneck is the development and manufacturing of prototypes. Traditional prototype methods, mostly performed by craftsmen, are known to be both costly and time-consuming. However, the development within the IT area has lately made it possible to speed up and compress this particular process step. Depending on the purpose of the prototype, a new technology called Rapid Prototyping can be used in many situations, reducing lead times in the development of prototypes from weeks and months down to hours, hence affecting the overall lead time. However, adopting this new technology also means considerably new working requirements as well as new options for most actors involved in the product development process, including external participants. Especially cross-functional and cross-organizational collaboration is strongly promoted by this technology, improving working relationships. (C) 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.