Abstract
In order to survive under fierce competition in today's global market, most enterprises in Taiwan have been devoting to transforming their core competences from manufacturing to global logistics and/or research and development (R&D). With the product life cycle becoming shorter, these companies have to effectively integrate the product development activities of all the stake holders within their product value chains to ensure competitive advantages and sustain market dominance. Thus, collaborative product development (CPD) plays a critical role in the current transformation for most enterprises in Taiwan. This research conducts a series of empirical studies for analyzing the product value chains of five different companies successful in implementing CPD. Different operating modes and implementing strategies are obtained from the analysis. A systematic approach is developed for categorizing CPD based on the number of engineering BOM items and degree of modularization in product design. The findings provide structured templates that facilitate deployment of CPD in current industrial settings.