The knowledge transfer in science and industry, in particular in the domain of product development, is enhanced by a growing number of knowledge bases available on the internet. Student designers, and design engineers in industry benefit from a huge variety of technical information and knowledge, that is hereby provided. In addition, the choice of systematic procedures and the application of product development methods is an important factor for successful product development processes. Various web-based portals are dedicated to providing access to procedural and method knowledge. However, the use of these portals amongst practitioners in academia and industry is still poor. This leads to the question: What requirements does such a system have to meet in order to be attractive for potential users? This paper investigates the motivation and various requirements concerning a web-based method portal for product development. Furthermore, the characteristics of the CiDaD method portal (http://www.cidad.de/), developed by the Institute of Product Development at the TUM, are presented and discussed.     «

The knowledge transfer in science and industry, in particular in the domain of product development, is enhanced by a growing number of knowledge bases available on the internet. Student designers, and design engineers in industry benefit from a huge variety of technical information and knowledge, that is hereby provided. In addition, the choice of systematic procedures and the application of product development methods is an important factor for successful product development processes. Various...     »