Partner selection model for design chain collaboration

Due to increasing global competition and shorter new product life cycles, brand owners collaborate more often with design chain partners to bring a new product to market. This paper proposes a design partner selection model to minimise the overall design chain cost, taking into account communication cost, time-to-market, and quality. The model can be formulated as a stagecoach problem. Next, a dynamic programming algorithm is developed for this model to select the optimal partners through the design chain. Finally, a numerical example and a sensitivity analysis are presented. The results also reveal that design quality and manufacturing quality positively influence the total cost, and when brand owners need to speed up time-to-market to keep up with a competitor, the design quality will become less important.