A synergistic approach to concurrent engineering

Current approaches to concurrent engineering typically fall into four areas: parallel tasks, data sharing, early invocation of 'ility analysis, and team design. None of these approaches will achieve the goals of true concurrent engineering-systematic cost reduction, quality improvement, and cycle time decrease-because all of these approaches consider individual aspects of a design singularly. Such an approach is analogous to a depth-first search of possible designs. An alternative approach, synergistic concurrent engineering, is based on breadth-first search, where multiple aspects are considered at every level of abstraction. To support synergistic concurrent engineering in practice, change is required in organizational structure and cultural attitudes. Most activity in the area of concurrent engineering represents evolutionary extensions to existing computer-aided design and engineering programs. This paper discusses the limitations of those evolutionary approaches when the problem is so massive that revolutionary solutions are required. It discusses an approach that begins to address the reliability and maintainability aspects of the total concurrent engineering methodology.<>