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The low-volume manufacturing industry is facing an ever increasing competitive market environment, where high degrees of flexibility, complex products and short time-to-market are important factors to remain competitive. These market dynamics are a strong motivator for companies to design and introduce new products to the market rapidly, thereby placing an increased emphasis on the new product development (NPD) process. The integration of design and manufacturing functions has been identified as a critical enabler to improve the NPD process and reduce lead times of products. A successful design manufacturing integration however requires a significant amount of data and information to be exchanged by both functions. To ensure this exchange, a robust product data infrastructure is necessary, along with the capability of systems to communicate seamlessly. The ability to exchange data relies heavily on technical interoperability, which is essential to enable a seamless dataflow and has been shown reduce the need for manual interventions and increases accessibility to data and enables better coordination of resources. Existing literature has primarily focused on technical interoperability from a high volume manufacturing perspective, noting that lacking technical interoperability can significantly impact the performance of manufacturing processes, including inefficiencies regarding workflows, data exchange and increased costs. However, less emphasis has been placed on technical interoperability from the perspective of low-volume manufacturing industry. 

The purpose of this thesis is therefore to explore how technical interoperability can be leveraged to facilitate design manufacturing integration within the context of low-volume manufacturing industry. This was achieved by performing an in depth single case study where an NPD process of a low-volume manufacturing company was analysed. The findings identify current challenges related to technical interoperability, their impacts on the NPD process, and finally the steps required to leverage technical interoperability to facilitate design manufacturing integration. The primary theoretical contribution of this thesis is its addressal of a notable research gap concerning the role of technical interoperability in facilitating design manufacturing integration, as well as providing further insights into the challenges and their impacts on NPD processes due to deficiencies in technical interoperability from the contextual perspective of the low-volume manufacturing industry. The practical contributions of this thesis include a comprehensive understanding of existing challenges related to technical interoperability and the impacts these challenges can have on the performance of an NPD process. Furthermore, this thesis provides a step-by-step approach detailing how technical interoperability can be leveraged and exemplifies the process.