The effectiveness of Engineering Design in practice is what results from a multitude of processes within the realm of Engineering Design itself. However, in order to understand the phenomenon, the processes whereby Engineering Design as a discipline comes together with disciplines from other areas of the company, to sustain the product development process itself, must be taken into account. Therefore, when companies strive to obtain an attractive level of effectiveness of their engineering

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... n activities, the product development process as a whole must be considered. In this paper the first step in an approach by which to optimize the product development process of a company is suggested. This approach makes it possible to arrive at specific conclusions about the constraints and shortfalls of the engineering design activities in a product development context.