CONCURRENT ENGINEERING - AN ENABLER FOR FAST, HIGH-QUALITY PRODUCT REALIZATION

Concurrent engineering (CE) is a proven approach for product realizati on that results in reduced time to bring a product to market, improved product and service quality, and reduced life-cycle costs. Time-to-ma rket improvements of 30% to 60% are typical of a disciplined approach to concurrent engineering. Concurrent engineering integrates and synch ronizes activities and the information required to define, design, pro duce, deliver the product or service, and to maintain the product or s ervice over its life cycle. This paper reaches beyond a simple explana tion of CE and provides examples of how powerful CE implementations ca n be. The paper: Describes the elements of an infrastructure and suppo rting technologies for a CE-based product realization process (PRP), P rovides guidance for deploying CE by explaining a broad-based CE imple mentation process, and Shares tips and ideas on how an individual or s mall team can catalyze CE in an organization.