International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp.

113-122 (2006)

113

A CASE STUDY APPROACH ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF

DESIGN CHAIN OPERATIONS REFERENCE-MODEL
IN THE MOLD INDUSTRY
JrJung Lyu1, Li-Ying Chang1*, Chih-Kan Cheng1 and Chia-Hung Lin2
1
Department of Industrial and Information Management
National Cheng Kung University
2
Gloria Material Technology Corporation
Tainan (701), Taiwan

ABSTRACT
For those traditional industries or the hi-tech industries, precise as well as reliable dies and
molds are indispensable for mass production. The development of dies and molds in a
timely and cost-effective way impacts on the product quality and schedule very much. As
industrial technology is progressing, demands on products are getting complicated and
product lifetime is shortening. There is, therefore, a need to reengineer a new product
development (NPD) process in the mold industry, which is a basic and important segment
to support product design and production functions in many industries. A reference model
developed by Supply Chain Council (SCC) to define the NPD processes, so called Design
Chain Operations Reference-model (DCOR), is a common methodology among design
chain partners to identify the metrics used to manage the related processes, and associated
best practices. The concept of DCOR is useful not only for offering an industrial standard
that enables next-generation design chain management, but also for using current practices
for further improvement. The DCOR is too general to be served as the benchmark of any
specific industry. The purpose of this paper is to extend Design Chain Operations
Reference-model into the mold industry (in short, M-DCOR) based on literature study and
a case study. The framework of NPD metrics and best practices in design chain are
developed through in-depth discussion of a large mold company. Further applications of
M-DCOR are also discussed.
Keywords: Collaborative Design, Mold Industry, Reference Model

1. INTRODUCTION
*

Todays competitive market has created a highly

challenging environment for product development.
Companies are under increasing pressure to sustain
their competitive advantages by reducing product
development time and cost while maintaining the
high quality [7].
In the product development
process, the mold technology promotion can be
helpful to differentialize from the competitor, and to
enhance the product value by high-tech. Therefore,
the advanced countries take the mold industry level
as this country's industry manufacture standard.
Rapidly providing the customer with high quality and
low cost molds already is the challenge which the
mold industry faces.
The mold industry, serving as an important link
between the product designer and manufacturer
supports, industries during the product development
*

Corresponding author: r3892105@ccmail.ncku.edu.tw

process [18]. Literature related to the dies and molds

design and manufacture is few on non-technology.
DCOR allows companies to communicate with
their partners, using common language and standard
descriptions of the process elements that help
understanding the overall design chain management
process and the best practices which yields the
optimal overall performance. Although the SCC has
developed the DCOR in 2004, DCOR has a lot of
limitations for application currently which will be
mentioned lately in this paper.
Collaborative design means a product designed
through a process with the efforts of internal and
external designers collaboratively. Through the
involvement from numerous designers, interior or
exterior to the organizations, the collaborative design
teams can aim at the objectives about optimized
mechanical functions of products and minimized
production or assembly cost [30]. Successful
collaborative design have indeed accumulated the
expected benefits including reduced development
cost, high quality, reduced time to market and

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supplier-originated innovation [24]. The precision

mold collaborative design and developments not only
promote the mold industry effects, but also is a key
capability that makes the industry transfer from OBM
to ODM. As a result, mold collaborative design is an
important strategic approach in design chain for mold
industry.
M-DCOR is built up based on a literature study
on DCOR, collaborative design and new product
development. It is extended from DCOR for better
understanding and application in the specific industry.
The purpose of M-DCOR is to offer a model for
designing, evaluating and implementing process to
optimize design chain focus on mold industry. This
paper is organized as follows. First, the importance
of mold industry in the manufacturing sector will be
discussed, and then a survey related theories and
methodologies will be reported. After that, a case
study introduces the NPD process improvement
project in a large mold company. The development
and applications of M-DCOR are also discussed.
Finally, the limitations and further work related to
this paper are discussed.

2. THE IMPORTANCE OF MOLD

INDUSTRY IN THE
MANUFACTURING SECTOR
Dies and molds are indispensable tools for mass
production such as electric and electronic products,
automobiles and motorcycles. Many parts these
products are produced using dies and molds. As a
result, the die and mold industry is very important for
the development of mass production [23]. Dies and
molds also play a critical role of modern
manufacturing [5], because they dominate all range
of value-added parts and products which are widely
applied to various industries. Moreover, the mold
design is critically important to product quality and
efficient product processing, what mold makers are
following the critical path of product development
and decidedly influence the motivation of start of
production. Since mold industry is a supporting
industry in the manufacturing sector and the
performance of mold has high impact on the
performance of product, the mold industry is so
important in the manufacturing sector.

3. LITERATURE SURVEY
3.1 Design Chain
The design chain domain is defined as the
collection of business activities associated with all
phases of product engineering including research and
development. The design chain is divided into 3
process types: planning processes, execution

processes and enabling processes. Planning processes

prioritize design chain projects and allocate resources
to design projects. Planning processes generally
occur at regular intervals and may contribute to
design chain response time. Execution processes are
triggered by planned or actual demand. Execution
processes include decomposition of specifications,
defining the form, fit, and function of products and
services, creating and evaluating prototypes and
pilots, and releasing products to supply chain
execution, marketing and services. Enable processes
prepare, maintain, and manage information or
relationships upon which planning and execution
processes rely [29].
3.2 Design Chain Operations Reference-model
DCOR was first developed by Business
Management Organization of Hewlett-Packard in
2004. The purpose of DCOR is to standardize the
definition of NPD processes for offering a common
language among design chain partners. DCOR
identifies the metrics used to manage these processes.
The model itself contains several sections and is
organized around the five primary management
processes of plan, research, design, integrate, and
amend (as shown in Table 1).
The reference model processes start with the
earliest planning and research, and extend through
specific design, design integration and design
amendment. The model is designed and maintained to
support design chains of various complexities and
across multiple companies. The council has focused
on three process levels and does not attempt to
prescribe how a particular organization should
conduct its business or tailor its information flow.
Every organization using the DCOR model to
improve its design chain that needs to extend the
model, at least to Level 4, by using
organization-specific processes, systems, and practice.
The overall framework is shown in Figure 1.
Successful companies strive to create
competitive advantage by applying a sound
understanding of basic knowledge and an adequate
amount of specialist knowledge to the problems that
they encounter [10]. The DCOR model has to meet
the needs of a particular industry. Not every company
is capable and willing to explore opportunities
offered by the DCOR model, because DCOR model
isnt easy to be understood and implemented.
DCOR should be extended to specific industry
in order to make the application easier. Since design
chain domain is defined as the collection of business
activities associated with all phases of product
engineering which should involve both internal and
external enterprise. But there is not a clear guideline
or framework for the relationships among the
standard process within extended enterprise in the
first version. A process of reference models should

J. J. Lyu et al.: A Case Study Approach on the Development of Design Chain Operations
contain the standard metrics to measure process
performance and the management practices that
produced best-in-class performance [29], which can
not be found in the first version of DCOR.
Table1: Definition of DCOR Level 1 [29]
The planning processes prioritize
design chain projects and allocate
resources to design projects.
Planning processes generally occur
Plan
at regular intervals and can
contribute to design chain response
time.
The research process encompasses
the
identification
and
decomposition of research topics,
obtaining and synthesizing of
information and evaluation and
Research
publishing of research findings.
This includes the identification of
sources of supply, sourcing and
validation of materials/products
against requirements.
The design process encompasses the
definition, creation, analysis, testing
and release of form, fit and function
of a product. This includes
Design
development of manufacturing,
testing, servicing and disposal
processes.
The integrate management process
encompasses
synthesizing
the
design
definitions
and
decomposition of the design
definitions into sets of component
Integrate design definitions, releasing product
and product definitions to Supply
Chain execution and releasing
design documentation to Business
Development and Customer Chain
organizations.
The amend management process
encompasses the gathering and
analysis of product design issues
Amend
and manufacturability feed back for
current products.
3.4 Collaborative Design
Collaborative design is a strategic business
approach that applies a consistent set of business
solutions in support of the collaborative creation,
management, dissemination, and use of product
definition information across the extended enterprise
from concept to end of life integrating people,
processes, business systems, and information [8].
New product development is a highly interactive
process and is challenging when the activity is largely

115

contained within one organizational unit. However,

the complexity and challenges increase and magnify
when the process involves a network of organizations
with different goals, capabilities and dependencies
[24], the goal of collaborative design is to integrating
people, processes, business systems, and information
to break the barrier among different organizations and
eventually achieve the consistent goals effectively in
design chain.
Standardized
Process
Definition

Best
Practices

DCOR Model

Metrics

Level 1
Process

Plan

Research

Design

Integrate
Amend

D1 Design Product Refresh

Level 2
Process

D3 Design New Technology

D2 Design New Product

Level 3
Process

D2.01

D2.02

D2.03

Receive & Validate

Request

Identify Source for

Teachnology

Develop Prototype

D2.06

D2.05

D2.04

Release Design to
Integrate

Package Design

Build & Test

Prototye

Figure1: Framework of DCOR

4. CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

4.1 Overall of the Case Company
Gloria Material Technology Corporation
(GMTC) is the first specialty steel manufacturer in
Taiwan to engage in the manufacture of special alloy
materials. GMTC has set up a continuous production
process with melting, LD refining, electroslag
remelting, forging, rolling, quenching-tempering
factories and finishing facilities. They provides high
quality material to the worldwide such as Ti-alloy,
Tool Steel, High Speed Steel, P/M High Speed Steel,
Stainless Steel, Quenched-Tempered steel and
various ESR materials. Over the past ten years, they
have successfully developed over 500 steel grades.
GMTC just knew the source material can
correlation of industry the application quite
widespread, also attachment value and the profit
comparatively original source material the industrial

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application output value are also good. Their future

development direction takes the material experts as
the foundation, integrating material application
domain and the processing adds the value.
4.2 Evolution of Business Model
Therefore, GMTC solves the problems which
the mold industry faces. GMTC formulates the
following strategies: the high precise rank processing
technology development, the same business strategy
alliance or the merge expand management scale, and
early involvement product development design.
GMTC horizontal integrated strategy for
diversification as well as the vertical extension
strategy combined the individual department
operation into together. The key points are as
following:
1. This new model unifies the mold factories
offering complete service to system factories.
The whole set of services includes the mold
material supply, design, development, and
manufacture.
2. GMTC integrates the design chain from the mold
material preparation and the mold development
to the product manufacture assembly lines of
customers.
3. For establishing the virtual integrated
manufacture system, the new model includes
the mold inserting specification system, the
collaborative design system, and the mold
material and processing conformity, as well as
using the collaborative work system.
4. Under this new model, GMTC adds the product
value by providing the mold material and
integrating the mold kernel processing, and
directly supplies the mold insert semi-finished
product to the mold factories.
4.3 Evolution of NPD
The current problems what the mold industry face
are as follows:
1. The time to market is getting more and more
quickly: along with the rapid development of
information technology, the cycle time from
development to the market of the new product is
getting shorter.
2. The general business scale in this industry is
mostly small and medium, or is family workshop
style, and they usually are unable to meet the
customer requirements.
3. Depending on working experiences, making the
molds usually cannot meet the requirements
from customers. Especially on the final testing
stage, design changes happen regularly.
4.4 To-Be Model Analysis
GMTC To-Be model analysis is as following:
1. By means of information technology system, the

2.

3.
4.

company integrates whole mold manufacturing

process in order to offer complete services to its
clients.
Shortening the mold development process and
reducing design changes can be done by early
involvement.
Integrating mold making related knowledge
makes the molds be optimized.
Standardized the mold insert specification, the
time and cost of mold development can be
reduced.

4.5 Development of IT System

GMTC hopes the application information
systems can grasp the customer demand information,
and then be helpful in coordinating with customers to
integrate knowledge from both sides.
The customer demand management system
keeps all records of transactions, including
customers requirements, characteristics, and histories.
The collaborative design system provides an on-line
environment for discussing customers requirements
and product specifications. The mold inserts and
mold product knowledge database constructs a
knowledge management environment for the mold
material and the mold knowledge. Outsourcing
management systems can be used to build up the
interaction platform, and it would let suppliers
rapidly use the information system to grasp the
customer request information. Also it provides
control schedules to catch the goal of the rapid
response.
4.6 Discussion
There is an important phenomenon exists in
design chain, that is the impact of design decision is
initially very high, and declines exponentially as the
design matures. A serious problem exists in design
chain, that too much iteration of design change cycle
wastes time and cost significantly due to individual
companies no longer have the breadth of knowledge
and capability to understand all the aspects along
with the design chains, the goal of collaborative
design is to solve this problem in design chain.
More recently, Taiwan's industrial development is
moving
from
OEM
(Original
Equipment
Manufacturing) towards ODM (Original Design
Manufacturing), and even further to OBM (Original
Brand Manufacturing), emphasizing the importance
of value-added quality in its products and their
capability of research and design, while product
manufacturers including OEM, ODM and OBM, lots
of them have adoption of collaborative design in
design chain in Taiwan, especially for ODM and
OBM. Mold industry, as an important part of design
chain, must know how to collaboration with their
customer and supplier in design chain effectively not
only for competitive advantage but for survival. The

J. J. Lyu et al.: A Case Study Approach on the Development of Design Chain Operations
case company is one of mold companies invest
collaborative design project for optimizing design
chain in Taiwan, before they invested huge money on
process re-engineering and supporting IT system,
they have paid a lot of efforts on building a process
framework, looking for metrics to measure the
process performance and management practices to
produce best-in-class performance. As a result, a
reference model focus on mold industry, which will
be usefulness for designing, reconfiguring, and
evaluating the process improving project efficiently
and effectively in mold industry.
Many of these issues occur when process
involve with different organizations. Difficulties with
different
organizational
structure,
different
management
skills, different new product
development process and different systems, these
challenges can result in a lot of barriers among
organizations to deal with collaboration effective in
design chain, a standard process reference model
offering a common language to communicate in
design chain may break part of these barriers. A
standard process reference model and clear
framework for the relationships among the standard
process within extended enterprise might enable all
departments and businesses involved in developing
and managing the integrated design chain to
collaborate effectively.

5. DESIGN CHAIN OPERATIONS

REFERENCE-MODEL IN MOLD
INDUSTRY (M-DCOR)
5.1 Importance of the Capability of Collaboration
in Mold Industry
In nowadays marketplace, companies compete
in a dynamic environment with swiftly changing
velocity. Not surprisingly, time is a strategic
competitive advantage [28], so the time-based
competitive strategy seeks to compress the required
time of product developing process. Speed-to-market
has become the mantra of both researchers and
practitioners in the new product development [6],
while the development of dies and molds in a timely
and cost-effective way has impact strongly to the
product quality and schedule for time to market. As a
result, the mold industry plays the key role in the
early involvement NPD process and offers quality,
speed, and cost benefits to those major stakeholders
in the design process. Therefore, collaborative new
product development is recognized as an increasing
important industrial activity [13]. Successful NP/SD
crucially depends on the effective coordination and
integration of people, information and activities [24].
Making an attempt to alleviate the risks associated
with P/DI, some companies have turned to
collaborative product development strategies. As a

117

part of a design chain, the capability of collaboration

for mold industry has become an important
competitive advantage.
5.2 Mold Development Process
The mold development process starts with
receiving the customers specification data including
the conceptual sketch, math data, and other
information. With customers requirements, the mold
makers begin to design molds by CAD in 2D or 3D,
communicate with the part designers to meet their
requirements, send feedback to customers, and get
the final design with customers confirmation. Mold
design is composed of two steps: the initial design
and the detailed design. The initial design is
constructed from the decisions made at the early
stage, such as the type of mold configuration, the
number of cavities, the types of gate and mold base.
The detailed design is set up by the insert (core/cavity)
design, the ejection system design, the cooling and
venting component design, the assembly analysis,
and the final drafting. A mold order contains insert
and mold base order, die and mold standard
components order. Once the design of the mold and
die has done, the mold makers will run the machine
tools, such as high-speed machining centers and
5-axis machining centers, electrical discharge
machines, and grinding machines, to fabricate
components for the die and mold. After all the mold
or die parts are produced or purchased, they will be
assembled and fitted together. Quality inspection is
usually performed in whole producing process. The
mold and die makers may have a tryout by his own
facilities if they own any plastic injection molding
machine. The whole mold development process is
shown in the Figure 2.
Customer Spec

Preliminary
Design

Material
Ordering

Machining

Inspection of Mold

Preliminary
Design

Assembly

Tryout

Figure2: The mold development process

In most cases, the product design is always
separated from the mold design. The product and
mold development activities have been performed by
designers and engineers with different responsibilities.
In the context of sequential order processing, the
finished and prepared design documents were
formerly passed on to an internal or external mold
supplier after termination of product development.
The mold supplier is only responsible for designing
and building the mold not exerting genuine influence

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on the design of the product. Since in the product

development process the know-how of mold making
cannot be integrated into the design of parts,
increased development time and cost due to more
interactive modified and design mistake can be the
result.
5.3 Metrics of Design Chain Process
Performance measurement of R&D and NPD
activities is gaining important, because the
effectiveness and efficiency of these activities not
only determine a firms competitive advantage, but
its very survival [2]. The existing literature on R&D
and NPD in terms of process management measures,
what high performance rhymes with optimizing
quality, measure lead time and cost to ensure projects
reach their goals [3,4,5,9,16]. In terms of innovation
measurements, they mostly focus on outputs such as
the number of patents, the count of new product
awards, and the percent of new technology content in
new products [2,27]. The definitions are shown in
Table 2.

Attribute

Speed

On Time
and on
Budget
Success,
Fail and
Kill Rates

Innovation

Table 2: Metrics of NPD

Definition
NPD speed is defined the
pace of activities between
idea
conception
and
product implementation.
Time to market is defined
as the average product
development time from
idea generation through to
launch.
The proportion of projects
hitting their launch dates
on time.
The proportion of projects
entering the development
stage become commercial
successes.
Output on number of
patents generated, the
count of new product
Awards, and the percent
of new technology content
in new products.

Study
[21]

[9]

[9]

[9]

[2,27]

Since research in new product development has

shown that collaborative design in design chain is
getting important with strong impact on development
performance, which is mentioned on collaborative
design, ESI, and IPD [11,14,24,25]. But there is
seldom literature mentioned how to measure the
effect of collaboration upon the design chain. A new
era in product development should have new rules.
Although some metrics has no change, some of them
do. Metrics are increasing influence on measuring the

collaboration effects between companies and their

customers and suppliers. With the metrics, DCOR
users know how to measure the performance of
collaborative design, track process, and finally
achieve goals.
5.4 Best Practice in Design Chain
In this era of faster, cheaper and Innovation,
companies are focusing on improving their product
development processes. New business strategies, new
business processes, and new enabling technology are
being used by many forward-thinking companies to
continually improve their product development
processes. The best practices are based on literature
review in terms of many successful case studies
related to new product development shown in Table 3.
These best practices may be organized into three
categories: strategy, process and supporting system
and technology. Through the classifying, any case
can be summarized and its purposed can be reported..
The best practice implementation of best product
development can be viewed as a continuous process
rather than a destination. These practices should be
repeatedly updated as the best new emerging
practices, and are currently identified as the best
practices to become a standard practice.
5.5 The Framework of M-DCOR
One of the biggest problems in design chain is
that iteration design change cycle wastes time and
costs significantly due to individual companies,
irregardless the size of the companies, some of which
may no longer have a better understanding of all the
aspects along with the design chains. For example,
the designer of products can not know the knowledge
of mold. Lacks of collaboration between part and
mold development often cause a consistency problem:
even though one part may be quite good for its
function and performance, the mold may not be done,
or it may be done by a large amount of cost.
Moreover, an important phenomenon of design chain
is the impact of design decision is initially very high,
and declines steeply as the design matures. Great
opportunity exists at the preliminary design stage. As
a result, collaboration as early as possible in design
chain is very important to solve the above problems.
Therefore, we try to use the DCOR standard process
and add the conception of collaboration. Figure3
shows the framework of the relationships among the
standard process within extended enterprises.
DCOR is a cross-industry frame of product
development process so that the model is a general
one. For some specifically industries, model should
be extended to lower process focusing on special
industry development processes. As a result, we
define the Level 4 process and activities based on
mold industry. The process is shown in Figure 4.

J. J. Lyu et al.: A Case Study Approach on the Development of Design Chain Operations

119

Table 3: Best practice in design chain management

Components
Description
Study
Bring together the best thinking from across the value chain; [1,13,18
Collaborative design
not just the best thinking within the four walls of the enterprise
,24]
Focus first on your core competencies; then look to partners for
complements
[31]
Strategy Technology alliances
Select best-in-class partners to leverage your capabilities
Develop the complement technology for your customers
Long-term relationship Long-term optimization instead of short-term orientations
[9,11]
Increased added value Deliver not only parts but complete (sub)systems
[31]
Early
involvement
Process or guideline of design in and ESI
[12,19]
integrate process
Structure management
Process used and understood easily in design chain
[13]
process
Project management processes of initiating, planning,
Process Portfolio and project executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing; portfolio
[20,26]
management process management deals with the critical issue of balancing resources
available with the numbers of projects
Collaborative
Collaborative continuous improvement process between
continuous
[22]
companies within the EME
improvement process
Project management PMI
[20]
Design optimization CAD, CAM, Design automation, simulation
[17]
Supporting
Product life cycle BOM,
engineering
change
management,
workflow
System and
[20]
management
management
Technology
Supplier/customer
Web collaboration tool, information sharing tool,
[18]
integration
RFI/RFQ/RFP
Element

R2

Customer

D2

A2

positioning, and implementing to optimal design

chain in the mold industry. We now summarize the
applications in term of how case company used the
M-DCOR to evaluate the NPD improving project.

I2

D2

Your Company

D2
A2

I2

D2.01
D2.02
D2.03

Supplier

D2.04
R2.06

I2

Figure 3: The framework of M-DCOR

Because of efforts to reduce time, mold maker
concurrently, rather than sequentially. For example,
even before the final design is confirmed by customer,
the mold maker has already ordered the raw material
and has begun initial machining operations which are
also shown in Figure 4. Its quite clear to analyze by
the concept of early involvement. Each level of
process can involve earlier, which is a result of
reducing time and a better significant decision.

6. APPLICATION OF M-DCOR
M-DCOR is developed as a model for evaluating,

D2.03.1
Mold Design
D2.03.2
Material
ordering
D2.03.3
Machining

D2.03.4
Assembly

D2.03.5
Tryout

Figure 4: The process level of M-DCOR

6.1 Metrics Analysis
For the time of mold development, this case
company expects it can improve 20% in mold
development time which will be 14 days, but
comparing with the practice in mold Industry, 7 days
is the time of best achievement. That is a problem in

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terms of setting the metrics. We find some metrics are

not standard in mold industry, so it is difficult to
compare with the best practices. Moreover, these
metrics may not be a key metrics which will impact
on the priority of performance improvement. Lastly,
some of new key metrics are not taken as the key
metrics in this case company, for example, the
metrics for co-development.

reconfiguring its supply chain to achieve desired

performance in mold Industry.
AS-IS

Number of Design change : 5-8

Exterior
Design

Interior
Design

BOM

6.2 Best Practice Analysis

The case company develops collaborative design
based on value added strategy. They hope to deliver
not only mold but parts, yet they only developing
technology considering their own strength instead of
the demands of their customers. In this situation, they
might need to look for new customers. Their current
customer might need another technology, which
result in difficulty of developing the long-term
relationship with their partners, which either result in
adding the difficulty on collaboration with their
partners, or result in ineffective on collaborative
design. The same situation happened on supplier
selection. The key metrics for suppliers selection is
the number of suppliers. The more number of
suppliers are, the higher performance is. That may be
a problem in selecting best-in-class partners to
leverage their capabilities and to influence their
technology road map and R&D activities.
6.3 Improvement of Process Analysis
While mold makers are planning their own, it is
quite important for them to comprehend the design
process of their customers so that they can collaborate
with their customers in the earliest phase. The case
company spends a lot of time in communicating with
their customers in order to improve the collaboration
process in the design chain. The As-Is process and the
To-Be process in design chain are shown in Figure 5.

7. CONCLUSION
Because of the market changes, many industries
have been characterized by a strong demand for
reducing time and being cost-effective while
maintaining a high level of quality. This trend
seriously affects the mold industry, particularly in its
quality of linkage between product development and
production process, where the schedule of mold
makers is critical to the product development and
manufacturing. This pressure has forced mold
industry to optimize the design chain as soon as
possible for survival and growth. M-DCOR was
developed based on the case study, literature review
and was extended from DCOR of SCC. This model is
designed
for
evaluating,
positioning,
and
implementing to optimal design chain in the mold
Industry. The M-DCOR model can help upper
management of an organization in designing and

Precise
Machining

Plot

Mold
Design

Tryout

BOM

Insert
Order

Rough
Machining

TO-BE

Number of Design change : 3-5

System

Exterior
Design

Interior
Design

BOM

Early
Involvement
Parting
line
confirmed

System Mold Design

Mold
Plot

20% Time
Reduction
Tryout

BOM

Size of Insert System

Confirmed

Insert
Order

Rough/
precise
machining

Figure 5: The As-Is and To-Be process

Since the development of DCOR is too slow to
meet the demand of enterprises and its methodology
is too difficult to understand and to apply, an
extended model focusing on a specific industry is
necessary. As collaborative design is an important
strategic approach in design chain, a reference model
can provide a clear framework to illustrate the
collaborative relationships among the process within
extended enterprises. This paper highlights several
directions which might require further research:
1. To be applied in the practices easily, should
DCOR be developed as industry-specific or be a
general framework?
2. How to build the framework for the relationships
among the design process within extended
enterprises?
Note that M-DCOR is developed based on the
design process of a specific company. It is necessary
to further develop the proposed M-DCOR model
based on more companies practices.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

JrJung Lyu is a Professor in the Department of
Industrial and Information Management at National
Cheng Kung University. He obtained a Ph.D degree
in industrial engineering from the University of Iowa.
He has participated in many projects, public services,

and reviewing committees. Dr. Lyu has published

over 30 journal papers and earned the National
Quality Award in 2002.
Li-Ying Chang is a Ph.D student in the Department
of Industrial and Information Management at
National Cheng Kung University. His research
interests include collaborative design, six sigma, and
quality function deployment.
Chih-Kan Cheng is a graduated student in National
Cheng Kung University. He majors in industrial and
information management. His research focuses on
product life-cycle management.
Chia-Hung Lin is the deputy junior vice president in
Gloria Material Technology Corp. He leads the RD
center of the collaborative technology development
program and is currently in charge of a collaborative
design project.
(Received June 2005, revised November 2005,
accepted December 2005)