The presented research idea in this paper is based upon the basic research being done during a licentiate investigating a network of companies within the automation industry. The findings thereshowedthat they do collaborate in all phases of product development and with many different external organizations.The idea is to investigate this collaboration further with a multiple case study in seven of the projects the companies have been working in. The main aim ofthis study would be to describe the collaboration and if possible divide them into categories to be able to compare different collaborations and see if one type stands out compared to others.The suggested grouping is formal collaboration, social collaboration, and structured collaboration. Where the main hypothesis is that structured collaboration is the most successful one