The realization of efficient product development and production processes forms the basis for economic success. It is of vital importance to keep up with the technological development in order to be able to react to new developments in time and furthermore to actively participate in the future evolution of development related technologies. In this context, the domains of Functional Mock-Up, Collaborative Requirements Management, Collaborative Project Engineering, VR-Engineering, IT-Security in Virtual Product Creation, and Knowledge Based Engineering are of particular importance and require detailed attention.

The study “Setting the Course for Innovative Engineering” has been conducted with the major objective of identifying IT-potentials in product creation and possible realization strategies up to the year 2010. This study pays special attention to the domains mentioned above and describes comprehensively the respective states of the art, deficits and requirements, trends and visions, realization subjects and strategies, as well as benefits and success criteria. The present article summarizes the results of the study which was conducted by Fraunhofer IPK in cooperation with TU München (iwb), TU Darmstadt (DiK), TU Chemnitz (FtU), Computer Graphics Center (ZGDV e.V.), and Universidade Metodista de Piracicaba, Brasil (UNIMEP). It was kindly financed by ProSTEP iViP Association.