In today's world, industries are flooded with new initiatives and styles of thinking that are all begging for attention. Just-in-time production, total quality management, lean manufacturing, and continuous improvement are just a few of the new methods incorporated in modern industrial lingo. My goal in this paper is to investigate and highlight one of these new processes, concurrent engineering.
Concurrent engineering (CE), a new design methodology, enhances an organization's productivity through the universal integration of all systems in the organization. The primary goal of CE is to reduce the lead-time, or the total time from designing a product to releasing it into the market, while creating better designs as well. The Institute for Defense Analysis provides an excellent definition of CE:.
Concurrent Engineering is the systematic approach to the integrated, concurrent design of products and related processes, including manufacturing and support. This approach is intended to cause the developers to consider all elements of the product life cycle from conception through disposal, including quality, cost, schedule, and user requirements. (Concurrent Engineering Resources on the Web).
In CE, a tight link must exist between all people participating in the project. This means that CE will cover the entire life cycle of a product.
Concurrent Engineering is similar, but not identical, to Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). In the online article, Concurrent Engineering Resources on the Web, the author says, "Much research work has been done in the area of CSCW. Group decision support systems (GCSS), calendar manager, group authoring tools, electronic meeting rooms, and video conferencing are examples of CSCW." Both CE and CSCW include widespread group work and collaboration. The two fields require the sharing of knowledge and multi-dimensional teams, but CE is more in-depth. CE concentrates more fully on the data standards and cooperative work than the more process oriented CSCW.