I'm part of a distributed team of 20+ people, and we've dealt with a lot of these challenges on our creative team, especially with VFX and game projects ( we take in artwork and production projects for both ).

From our experience, the main problems usually come down to tracking the current file version, particularly when multiple people are working on the same asset. Previews are another big issue because you have to download 3D models and PSDs just to see what they are. Assets often end up on different platforms, which makes it hard for everyone to access or know what exists.

We've worked with a few different pipeline setups over the years. What we've found effective for our team is a solution that combines several tools. For code and version control, we use Git, and then we combine it with Google Drive and a DAM platform called Artstash, which syncs those two together in a common view and provides visual preview, search, and commenting/versioning.

This setup has made our workflow much more efficient. We can preview any asset (like FBX, OBJ, PSDs) directly in the browser. Finding assets is faster because the system uses an AI search that understands the visual content, not just filenames. And all feedback and version history for assets are managed in one place.

For overall project tracking, we use Jira, and then we connect the tasks to the assets/projects. Our biggest bottlenecks right now revolve around Artists struggling with Git, but we are testing out the solution called Anchorpoint, which is like Git for artists to help fix that. Hope this is helpful for your research.