This paper stresses the importance of collaborations to foster innovation and highlights the need for a shared understanding of innovation. To support successful collaboration we outline essential success factors and formulate hypotheses to improve collaborations focussing on SMEs. A model is introduced, allowing the identification of fields and measures to foster innovation. In addition, the concept of Product Generation Engineering is proposed to analyse past and plan future innovation activities. The discussion and hypotheses are addressed to researchers in the field of product engineering.
