Improving co-development through process alignment

There has been a recent surge of enthusiasm icithin tlie automotive industry to build closer supplier relationships idthin the area of product development. One concept deemed central to these relationships is the alignment of development processes between the collaborating organizations, an area that is expanded upon idthin this paper. We suggest that synchronization can be achieved through the four key steps of process standardization, knowledge sliaring, alignment of existing practices, and continuous elimination oftcaste idthin the joint development cycles. A methodology for implementing these stages is presented along idth the underlying prindples on which it is based - the importance of joint teamworking and multi-company involvement idthin the alignment process is higlilighted. © MCB University Press.