University-industry research and development links are commonplace. They offer many mutual benefits and have led to the development of significant outcomes. In the main, such linkages are in fields such as science and technology, not in research and development in workplace literacy. This article reports on a collaboration between university researchers and training staff in an international company in New Zealand. The company wanted to develop literacy assessment tools suitable for assessing the literacy training needs of their factory floor workers. This article outlines the policy and intellectual context within which the research and development took place, describes the collaborative process used and evaluates the effectiveness of this process from the university researchers' points of view.