The prototype taxonomised: Towards the capture, curation, and integration of physical models in new product development

The management of data related to prototypes created during new product development is seen as a beneficial yet challenging activity. While attempts have been made to understand prototypes and their context in a range of use-cases, there is a gap in the understanding of the data that captures a prototype’s context and physical form. This paper highlights this gap, and addresses it through the development of a new taxonomy. Using existing literature, a body of domain-specific terms, and the combined experience of the nine authors, a robust and systematic taxonomy development process was followed. A comparison of the developed and pre-existing taxonomies, and an illustrative example, is used for evaluation. The taxonomy is fully presented along with a description of each of the 53 dimensions, and it is intended to be the foundation upon which methods and processes can be developed to improve the capture, curation and integration of physical prototypes in new product development.