A CUSTOMER-SUPPLIER SYSTEM FOR DISTRIBUTED GLOBAL PRODUCT MANAGEMENT Chan W. Chung, Ajoy Raj, Srinivasan Turuvekere, Vineet Agarwal, Karthik Ramani Center for Information Systems in Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN Abstract: Globalization of many industry sectors is increasing competition in manufacturing. Various strategic partnerships and alliances with other companies are becoming very common. There are many critical issues for companies managing the complex business and product development processes. People involved in product development often work in geographically different locations and time zones. Paper-based processes are inefficient, time consuming and cause redundancy in documents and miscommunication. Uncontrolled email without proper coordination of projects and people impede knowledge management. This paper presents a web-based architecture for enabling streamlined customer-supplier interaction throughout the product lifecycle. Our distributed product management (DPM) approach is designed to minimize time-delays and improve communication during interactions between distributed teams. A secure document repository allows users to upload, browse and download project-related files. Messaging utilities and scheduling modules provide tools for executing and tracking the progress of the project. A web-based multi-user 3D CAD collaboration module allows for documents and CAD models to be associated logically. Customers can share information while restricting access to file level. An implementation of the DPM system is discussed throughout this paper. Keywords: Collaborative Design, Web -based Collaboration, Product Lifecycle Management, Thin Client, Document Management 1. Introduction The multi-disciplinary nature of a product requir es involvements of people with different abilities located in geographically separated regions