Communication in product development projects in steel and paper industry

The information and communication flow in product development projects, for companies dealing with paper and steel products, are discussed in this paper. Today, paper and steel industries face a more customer-oriented view in product development issues. Keeping contact with markets and customers is getting increasingly important for these industries. A total of 20 respondents at four companies were interviewed to achieve an understanding of how these industries keep their contact with their R&D and their customers. The study indicates that customers' feedback into the product development projects is significant for paper and steel industry, but that there is a need of a more systematized way of gathering this information. Another issue is that centralized R&D should take more responsibility in using market information more effectively, i.e. as input to future products.