Recent advances in engineering collaboration tools and internet technology have enabled the distribution of product development tasks to offshore sites and global outsourcing partners while still maintaining a tightly connected process. Most firms in complex engineering industries are indeed...

Title from cover. "August 2000." At head of each leaf: DRAFT - 8/28/00.

Cover title. "An earlier form of this paper was presented at the 1995 ASME Conference on Design Theory and Methodology."

"February 1995 [i.e. 1993]. -- Revised May 1995." "Forthcoming, IEEE transactions on engineering management." Title of original version: Evaluating communications in product development organizations, by Mark D. Morelli and Steven D. Eppinger.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 25-26).

Cover title. "July 1993." "M.I.T., Leaders for Manufacturing Program."--Cover.

Title from cover. "Revised, September 2000."

Execution of a complex product development project is facilitated through its decomposition into an interrelated set of localized development tasks. When a local task is completed, its output is integrated through an iterative cycle of system-wide integration activities. Integration is often...