Agostinho, C.Almeida, B.Nuñez-Ariño, M. J.Jardim-Gonçalves, R.Rajkumar RoyEssam Shehab2009-10-062009-10-0620092009-03-31C. Agostinho, B. Almeida, M.J. Nuñez-Ariño, R. Jardim-Gonçalves, Interoperability and Standards: The Way for Innovative Design in Networked Working Environments, Proceedings of the 19th CIRP Design Conference – Competitive Design, Cranfield University, 30-31 March 2009, pp139978-0-9557436-4-1http://hdl.handle.net/1826/3763Organised by: Cranfield UniversityIn today’s networked economy, strategic business partnerships and outsourcing has become the dominant paradigm where companies focus on core competencies and skills, as creative design, manufacturing, or selling. However, achieving seamless interoperability is an ongoing challenge these networks are facing, due to their distributed and heterogeneous nature. Part of the solution relies on adoption of standards for design and product data representation, but for sectors predominantly characterized by SMEs, such as the furniture sector, implementations need to be tailored to reduce costs. This paper recommends a set of best practices for the fast adoption of the ISO funStep standard modules and presents a framework that enables the usage of visualization data as a way to reduce costs in manufacturing and electronic catalogue design.enCopyright: Cranfield University 2009InteroperabilityModular ArchitecturesMorphismsStandardsVisualizationConference paper