The digital transformation of industry and higher education has increased the need for structured and technology-supported collaboration models facilitating communication, knowledge exchange, and innovation development across sectors. Despite the growing importance of interdisciplinary cooperation in creative and manufacturing industries, existing collaboration frameworks remain primarily oriented toward large enterprises and highly formalized production systems, offering limited applicability for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), family-owned companies, and design-oriented environments. The furniture and design sector continues to face challenges related to fragmented communication, inefficient coordination, prolonged prototyping processes, and insufficient integration between academia and industry.

A conceptual and implementation-oriented process model is proposed for an innovative digital platform supporting collaboration between furniture designers, architects, manufacturers, developers, and higher education institutions. The study adopts a mixed-methods and design science research approach combining literature review, benchmarking analysis, exploratory stakeholder consultations, semi-structured interviews, observations, and iterative framework development.

Preliminary findings identified recurring barriers related to fragmented communication, limited workflow transparency, insufficient access to collaborative networks, and the absence of centralized digital environments supporting interdisciplinary cooperation. In response to these challenges, the proposed framework introduces a scalable process-oriented collaboration ecosystem adapted to the operational realities of SMEs and creative-sector organizations.

The proposed model contributes to research on digitally mediated collaboration and industry–academia integration by supporting communication standardization, knowledge transfer, project-based learning, and collaborative innovation within the furniture and design sector