Integration of Internet and web-based tools in new product development process

New product development is considered to be vital for a company's long-term survival. In today's rapidly changing production environments customers are asking for highly customised products with affordable prices. A new production era that is known as mass customisation has already started in many sectors. The customer should become an integral part of the product design process in such an environment. The integration of Internet and web-based tools for customer data collection, communication and data processing is inevitable in order to speed up the production process and cut down the costs. This paper deals with management of product development with focus on synthesising new technology based concepts related to product development, and discusses their use in the various stages of product development process. It also provides guidelines for successfully implementing technology oriented new product development practices with a customisation perspective.