Towards Advanced Collaboration Systems for Design Reviews in Product and Production Development

Paper in proceeding, 2026

Design reviews are essential checkpoints in product and production development, yet their current implementation often leads to coordination difficulties and weak traceability. This paper defines what qualifies as an advanced collaboration tool for design reviews and identifies the core capabilities that distinguish such systems from conventional setups. The study builds on workshops with two industrial partners in the automotive sector, where participants reflected on the capabilities needed for more effective collaboration. Transcribed discussions were coded into capability clusters and grouped into three categories: interaction-related, process management-related, and domainspecific. The analysis identifies three core affordances that enable more effective design reviews: shared spatial presence, in-scene deictic indication, and independent navigation with presenter follow. Supportive capabilities such as anchored documentation, lightweight roles, and integration with managed records further improve participation and traceability. The proposed definition shifts attention from specific technologies to observable affordances that enable teams to jointly reason about complex geometry. It provides a practical foundation for evaluating and implementing collaboration systems that make design reviews more participatory, accountable, and efficient.