Concurrent Engineering (CE)

Concurrent Engineering (CE)

1. facing a boosting level of competitiveness.

   • shortening product life cycles
     • Product life-cycle (PLC) is the integrated, information-driven approach to all aspects of a product's life
       • concept to design
       • manufacturing
       • maintenance and removal from the market
       • Time
         • The life cycle refers to the time from the product’s first launch into the market until its final withdrawal
           • five stages:
             • Development
             • Growth
             • Maturity
             • Decline and
             • Withdrawal
   • globalization of the market
   • rapid technological changes
   • environmental issues
   • higher complexity of products
   • products with more features, higher quality, lower cost

2. “the systematic approach to the integrated concurrent design of products and related processes, including manufacture and support.

3. Concurrent engineering is hereby aimed at the timely availability of critical design information to all development participants.

4. Types CE Multidisciplinary Teams

   • team members consist of various departments
     • marketing
     • product engineering
     • manufacturing engineering
     • production engineering
     • finance
     • quality
     • systems engineering
     • external consultancy
     • services
     • logistic control
   • Functional Team:
   • Lightweight Team
   • Heavyweight Team:
   • Autonomy Team:
   • Collocated Autonomy Team:
   • The Virtual Team:

5. three basic elements

   • Concurrent work-flow
   • Early involvement of all participants and groups contributing to product development,
   • Team work

6. CE is the early involvement of a crossfunctional team to simultaneously plan product, process and manufacturing activities

7. organizational design approach has helped industries to improve their performance by leading to lower cost, higher quality, major knowledge creation and shorter product development times ([10]; [70]) all of which increases the organizational competitive skills.