New trends in rapid product development

This keynote paper presents an overview of new approaches in rapid product development from the design point of view. The evolution of the market has necessitated the reduction of time-to-market, mainly because the product life cycle is shorter, but also because it is very important to proceed more rapidly from an initial conception to a mass production object. As a result of newly evolved software environments, knowledge-based systems, and product data management, processes for integrated design and manufacturing for new products have emerged. Due to this evolution of rapid prototyping technologies, it has become possible today to obtain parts representative of mass production within a very short time. This keynote paper provides an overview of the actual trends in all the components that affect the speed and efficiency of product development, in particular all the possibilities available to the designer, from the earliest stages of a product's life cycle.