Tempe, AZ September 5, 2002 The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has tapped a collaboration solution from Framework Technologies to help manage the tire company's product development program.
Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear is using Framework's ActiveProduct solution to create a company-wide database where all new product development projects can be requested and initiated.
In addition, the solution allows the company to capture, in a consistent format, critical information, including projected sales volumes, product costs, technical feasibility and capital costs. This data is analyzed to determine the business case for each product or project.
"We are using ActiveProduct software to help implement our business decision process (BDP) across all of our tire product lines," said Bill Hopkins, Goodyear vice president for global product marketing and technology planning. BDP is one of the company's primary business management tools.
According to Framework, ActiveProduct allows product development team members, from executives to individual contributors, to work with the latest information available for each project. In this way, the team is able to make decisions based on continually updated data.
"We can view projects individually or within the business unit, customer or market segments," Hopkins said. "This helps us make strategic decisions about our product mix and helps ensure that they are right for our markets at the right cost."
Goodyear began worldwide deployment of ActiveProduct in 2002.
Goodyear, the world's largest tire company, employs about 95,000 people worldwide and manufactures tires, engineered rubber products and chemicals in more than 90 facilities in 28 countries.
