R D work groups

Three key groups of people who need to be involved in the process the suppliers, the R D work group and the customer. The suppliers include those people who provide the physical materials required for the job, and those who supply the services, for instance, information services to R D. The internal customers for work done in R D are the business unit, marketing or manufacturing, who are also its most important suppliers, supplying the targets for its work. Additionally, they will often supply a testing and evaluation service or a resource where this work can be done. Therefore, the process used in discussions with suppliers and customers can be considered as a cyclical one, as shown in Fig B15. 

The observation that the customer is directly involved with both the inputs and outputs of the R D work group is a key one. From this observation, a significant im-... 

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