Patent ID: 8225283

Claim:
A computer-implemented method supporting collaborative product development, said method comprising: maintaining under revision control, in a first repository, a plurality of artifacts associated with said collaborative product development, at least one of said artifacts having a plurality of lifecycle states, wherein at least one of said artifacts is associated with a first finite state machine (FSM) that defines lifecycle state transitions for said artifact, at least one said lifecycle state transition of said first FSM being associated with a set of actions that define possible actions of said artifact; maintaining under revision control, in a second repository, a plurality of artifact tuples, at least one first artifact tuple comprising first access information providing access to at least one of said plurality of artifacts in said first repository, at least one of said artifact tuple having a plurality of lifecycle states, wherein at least one of said artifact tuples is associated with a second finite state machine (FSM) that defines lifecycle state transitions for said artifact tuple, at least one of said lifecycle state transition of said second FSM being associated with a set of actions that define possible actions of said artifact tuple; and providing a set of lifecycle state transition mappings, at least one member of the set mapping a valid lifecycle state transition for an artifact tuple with one or more valid lifecycle state transitions for an artifact.