Distributed co-operative design systems supporting human factors with "communicate-it"

High productivity demands in the manufacturing industry fosters the search for efficiency through the whole product life cycle. This trend and the increasing flexibility requirements in production, make effective co-operation a crucial issue. Group-ware designed for distributed co-operation, as well as videoconferencing technologies have the potential to make co-operation independent from time and space. The integration of videoconferencing in CSCW-tools would be an improvement, but this suggestion also raises many questions. Communication needs and task parameters must be optimised in order to support effective solutions for distributed cooperation. Initial research shows the importance of person-oriented information in distributed settings.