Life-Cycle Management of Supplier Literature: The Pertinent Issues

In order to support the design and development of new products that are of enhanced quality, reliability, and performance, the need for design information to be accurate, current, and accessible should be a major influence and priority for individuals and organizations alike. This article identifies standard supplier literature as a key source of design information; it is widely used and heavily relied upon within the early phases of new product development where the cost and quality of an artifact are largely defined. Subsequently, it presents and discusses the results of an extensive investigation into the way this information source was organized and handled within a typical engineering organization. In general, this revealed that an array of deficient "systems" were used for classifying it, and there were no formal procedures in place for its life-cycle management, with corresponding consequences for the effectiveness of the design operation.