Collaborative product innovation network: Status review, framework, and technology solutions

The study aims to present framework and technology solutions for collaborative product innovation based on the status review. Companies are facing challenges including increasing product complexity, shorter product lifecycle, higher cost of research and development, and so on. To deal with these challenges, firms adopted practice of innovation network to co-innovate with suppliers, customers, and other external partners. However, in the past, segmental researches were mainly focused at the strategy level rather than at the project level, which provides specific guidance for product innovation. Thus, in this work, the authors propose a framework of collaborative product innovation network at the project level based on the review of innovation network. Technology solutions for collaborative product innovation network (modular product innovation network development and ontology-based knowledge integration) have also been proposed. Finally, an application in electric water heater development is also given to demonstrate the implementation and potentials of the framework.