An overview of concurrent engineering

Abstract

Concurrent Engineering (CE), or Integrated Product Development, is a Department of Defense (DoD) initiative for the defense industry; it has also been used very successfully by commercial industries. CE is applicable to any industry that develops its own products and wants to remain competitive in today's marketplace. The Computer-Aided Acquisition and Logistics Support (now called Continuous Acquisition and Life-Cycle Support) (CALS)/CE Industrial Steering Group (ISG), within the National Security Industrial Association (NSIA), chartered task groups to identify issues and guides to CE in the following areas: information exchange, electronic systems, mechanical systems, software, reliability and maintainability (R&M), manufacturing, and technical administration. This overview focuses on the electronic systems report, entitled First Principles of Concurrent Engineering: A Competitive Strategy for Electronic System Development. The core of the report defines the first principles and involves a technique for a self-assessment of the should be and the where is environment for CE. From the results of this self-evaluation, improvement planning and roadmap generation are possible from the report material. Also covered are benefits of CE, DoD, and industry obstacles to CE technology insights that enable CE, and recommendations to DoD and to industry to foster CE implementation. This report is the first primer on CE and should clarify the intent of CE as envisioned. This is a timely subject, as CE is now prone to many view points and ideas more aligned to partial instead of total implementation.