Holistic product development

Prof. Dr. Josef Hoschek founded these meetings with the objective of creating a forum, where managers and specialists from industry (especially automotive) and ITvendors, and experts from Universities and research institutes can exchange their expert knowledge and their innovative ideas for the future. To keep up with the fine tradition of the workshop and to honour the founder of it, this 5 th workshop was held in remembrance of Prof. Hoschek, since he passed away in 2002. The authors of the presentations and discussions published in this volume come from various countries: Europe, Israel, USA, and Japan. The papers cover the following issues: Industrial processes and workflow, product definition, IT-aspects, methods, tools, fundamentals, PLM, as well as strategic and legal aspects. The purpose of this workshop was to increase the information flow between competing enterprises and companies, with the common intention that sharing knowledge will bring advantages to all of us. The atmosphere of mutuality was reflected in the published talks, the common objectives were discussed and even solutions for common problems or challenges were pointed out.