5. A new role for suppliers

5.1 Co-design in the extended enterprise

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5.1.1 Suppliers become designers

Over the last thirty years, we have seen a profound change in the division of roles within the supply chain, between principals and their suppliers.

While they were initially confined to the manufacture of parts entirely defined by the customer's design office, their opinions on production difficulties were little sought, so the field of optimizing solutions through efficient product-process design remained largely untapped....