Considering these assumptions, how much an IT facility can contribute in technological development becomes a question of how much its features can be utilised in such resource combining processes. We will discuss this issue by taking a closer look at one of IKEA’s central IT systems called Product Information Assistance (PIA) and its role in a certain product development. The product in focus is one of IKEA’s biggest sales successes, the table ‘‘Lack’’. The scope of this study is therefore limited to how PIA is used for development projects, about only one among IKEA’s many products. The ambition is not to attain a fully representative picture of the use of IT, in general, and of PIA, in particular, in all IKEA’s development work. The way PIA is used in Lack’s product development reflects nonetheless the way it is used also for other many product development projects. The following material is based on a total of 34 interviews conducted between March 2001 and February 2002 at IKEA and at all the other firms mentioned in the case study. Informants were PIA users at various IKEA units (product developers, order managers, supply planners, retail store salesmen), IT support personnel at IKEA and, finally, production managers and technicians at the external units involved in the product development. Besides, access to PIA was granted on several occasions. Guided visits to production plants were also arranged. A limitation of this study is that the described product development process was not followed as it unfolded, but in retrospective.