Concurrent Engineering (CE) – Definition, Approaches and Requirements

Introduction to Concurrent Engineering

Concurrent engineering (CE) is a method that is used in the product development process. Concurrent Engineering, sometimes called Simultaneous Engineering or Integrated Product Development (IPD), can be defined as a systematic approach to the integrated, concurrent design of products and their related processes, including manufacture and support. It is different than the traditional approach from the product development in which it uses simultaneous, something that sequential, processes. By finishing the tasks in paralelamente, the product development can be obtained more efficiently and in substantial saving in costs.

In the traditional approach finishing all the physical manufacture of a prototype before realizing any test, but In the concurrent engineering it allows to design and multiple analyses to happen at the same time, and at different times, before the real unfolding. This multidisciplinary approach accentuates work in equipment with the use of cross-functional equipment, and allows so that the employees work in the end of collaboration in all the aspects of a project of the beginning. Also known like the iterative method of the development, concurrent engineering requires the continuous revision of the progress of equipment and the frequent revision of the plans of the project. The analysis reasoned behind this creative, modern approach is that whichever previous those errors can be shortages, easiest and less expensive they are to correct.

The concurrent engineering professionals explain from their experience that this system of management and design offers several advantages, including the quality of the increasing product for the end user, faster times of the product development, and lower costs for the manufacturer and the consumer.

There are some disadvantages associated to the putting in initial practice of concurrent engineering, including the necessity of the considerable reconstruction of organization and the extensive retraining of workers. Such potentially breaking changes and requisite aggregates of work can be fulfilled resistance of in charge and other employees. Also, there are generally considerable difficulties in data of transference between employees in diverse departments that can require additional pursuit of computer software applications. Besides these significant initial investments, the organizations whom they adopt a concurrent model of the work of engineering must typically wait for several years before considering the advantages of this transition.

Definition and Meaning of Concurrent Engineering

There are many alternative definitions are available for concurrent engineering, but this list is quite typical. The increasing of the role of manufacturing process on the design of process of product design, the formation of cross-functional equipment to obtain the development process, a concentration in on client during the development process, and the use of the implementation time as source of competitive advantage is all the part of the definition.

All the products have a necessity to incorporate the restrictions imposed by the process of manufacture in the product design. Depending on the manufacture consideration for the process, these effects can be codified in formal or computerized rules, or can be transported with individual experience and expert work. Defining these concerns in the early design in the development process creates the opportunity to reduce manufacture costs and to improve quality of the product. The method to obtain the integration of the design with other functions is often with the use of cross-functional teams. These teams can include to people with masters in the excellent production, commercialization, finances, service or other areas, this depends on the type of product. Another important functional barrier is the separation between the engineering designer and the client. Under same philosophy to eliminate the barrier of the design-manufacture, the designer can make more responsive to desires of the client and such way create a success product more and this is known like integration of the design-commercialization. The implementation time has demonstrated to be a significant facet of the modern competition. By diminishing the time of obtaining the product the company/signature can respond to the tendencies of the market or to the new built-in technologies quickly. Decreasing the implementation time creates an advantage of the market for those companies that can produce products quickly. All these ideas are the fundamental of the concurrent engineering and it have been discussed many years before the appearance of the concurrent movement of engineering.

The product designs have existed for while the production in mass has existed. At the beginning, a division of work of the intellectual appeared by whom the designer was responsible to present/display the design and the manufacturer was responsible to make the product real. Due to this division there is the opportunity so that the designer of the product works in the ignorance of manufacturer’ constraints. And then the designer became blamed by throwing the design over the wall which separates design of the manufacture and this design that is thrown on the proverbial wall is generally difficult and expensive to produce, and it does not adjust necessarily to desires of the market.

This functional separation and its resulting injurious effect on the resulting product design that could be repeated with other functions (such as commercialization, maintenance or others).The solution for this situation is to have the designer to be more involved in the other concerns inside and outside the organization in who he works. The engineering writers have implored that these barriers should be eliminated. There have been several different reasons to their imploration that the role of the manufacturing concerns in the design process must be increased. More frequently repeated between these reasons they are an increasing level of competition, the role of the new process of manufacture, and the necessity to reduce implementation time of the development. All these justifications to push concurrent engineering ideas have deep historical antecedents. These justifications are discussed down.

1. Increased Competition – A justification given for the necessity of the increasing cooperation in the process of the product development is an increasing level of competition. There have been demands that the competition level has increased recently occasionally when we did not consider recent more. For example, a claim is that the competition level has increased from the start of century of the nineteenth and the modern companies cannot be allowed not to pay attention to the design-manufacturing interaction. Similar, another say is that the one of high level of the competition in 1950’s required that the personal of the design and the manufacture cooperate in the new product development. The economic competition is and has been always fierce now and this effect is not new.
2. New Production Methods – Whereas the new methods of production enter in good condition gets to be important to get the knowledge on the new processes of production and its effects on the resulting product design to take advantage, and responds to the limitations of the new processes. The knowledge on these processes should be available for the designer of the product. This knowledge is often resident in the engineer of the production. Therefore, the situation where the new processes of production are used will be often important part to make sure that the design engineers work close by with the engineers of the production. Between new processes of manufacture, the development of the automatic techniques of the assembly has been mentioned frequently as to require of high level of integration between the design and manufacture. The new processes of manufacture are being developed continuously. Each new manufacturing process requires the close collaboration between the designer and the manufacturing engineer
3. Lead Time – One of the first motivations for a concurrent engineering approach to the product development is a desire to shorten the total time that takes to bring a product to the market. The notion that the length of the development cycle is an important competitive advantage and that the direction of all the aspects of the problem of the design could take at the same time as a shortened development cycle is a rule of many years. In summary, the claim reasons of the necessity of the integration of the economic competition is the new processes of production, and the shortening implementation time are not new.

Approaches to Implement Concurrent Engineering

1. Team Based Implementation – The team consists of designers and others of related areas. the team members are selected for their capacity to contributes in the design of a product, identifying potential problems early in the design stage. The progresses in hardware and software, have given to members the capacity to work in designs and to consider the effects of diverse qualities, on the final design. For the approach to the team-based work, they require to an team of multiple functions and is also desirable to educate the members of team in the philosophy of concurrent engineering.
2. Computer Based Implementation – The team -based approach can be executed easily, but it has problems: How to handle to a team effectively, Some members could have limited knowledge and It can be expensive to maintain to a team. Whereas the computers obtain more complex and faster, the new tools begin to emerge that they incorporate the concurrent philosophy of engineering in associate the hardware and software thus allowing that the designers change to the product design with respect to the life cycle of products. A constraint programming language is the one that has been developed so that to the designers to consider all the implications of the life cycle related to the product.

Requirements for Concurrent Engineering to be Viable

1. Overcoming Traditional Barriers – Beginning and maintaining the concurrent engineering is not an easy task. It demands the care, the discipline and the commission by the whole organization, of the management superior to the rows inferiors. It takes the education in all the levels from the organization on the concurrent engineering so that all speak a common language. The spectacular change to the traditional practices is also a necessity and the short term center of the business cannot exist in the context of the concurrent engineering that pleads continuous improvements.
2. Teamwork Development and Interaction – Since the team work is the dominant essence of the concurrent engineering, the process to select to the team should be dealt seriously and with the precaution. Composing of the team of several disciplines in an organization must be able to share ideas, to communicate freely and to work from the beginning cohesive with a right of the common objective. The members of team of interdisciplinary groups must rove through the traditional departmental borders, for unconstrained by the arbitrary barriers, communicate their concepts, make recommendations and negotiate conflicts to bring problems to ignite early. It defines the goals more early possible to determine a vision common to allow the alignment of intentions. The effectiveness of the work in team depends on the distribution of ideas and goals beyond immediate allocations and departmental loyalties. It is important to observe that the work in team and the distribution are due to value just as highly as technical capacity and creativity and have to be considered as an integral part of engineer evaluation of operation.
3. Involvement of Outside Influences – In order to develop close relationships with the clients and the suppliers, understanding its requirements and drawing on its contributions to understand better what and how to design. Being nearer clients will provide one better understanding of its requirements and company capacities to cover and to satisfy those demands. The close work with the suppliers adds its experience with zero cost to the organization. In fact, they often can, being expert in its respective fields, to suggest less expensive ways better and to make things. On the other hand, the information of suppliers is useful for the valuation of the project during the design stage. In addition, such relations facilitate manufacture practices just in time.
4. Co-evolution – Many implied activities in the manufacture of a product of their concept, design, making to the end item, are interdependent and they are due to see altogether. They must be worked ignited concurrently to facilitate an appropriate analysis of compensation that takes to the optimization of process design, to the requirements in conflict and the violations of the constraint of being identified and being solved.
5. Continual Improvement – In order to adopt a philosophy of doing it right and obtaining it better. The center of improvements must be applied in product and the processes implied in producing the product this possible aid to express the organization of the way of the fire fighting to the way of the prevention.
6. Information Sharing and Management – It must have an efficient system of the distribution of information such that the members of a team can accede to all the corporative facilities and to the information of the work carried out by the several teams that is necessary to design, to prove, to make and to support the product on their life cycle. All the excellent aspects of the design process are due to register and to document for the future references.
7. Togetherness – All the members of the teams must be established ideally near each other. This would animate communications and also it foments spirit of the group of the responsibility and the togetherness. If the positioning of the network is not possible to have each in great then proximity it must use to interchange the information. Alternatively, the team of the product development can accompany the movements by the product with its design and phases of development that gain experience throughout the way.
8. Integration of Frameworks and Tools – It integrates the frames and the computerized tools like the packages of CAD/CAM/CAE that give the transparent access to the tools related of the use and to the services of the part available to the team. It facilitates the process to transfer programs of the CAD/CAE in the machines to eliminate errors of the transcription in the manufacture upon the manufacture and of the assembly.
9. Empower – In order to authorize individuals or to the team to make necessary decisions when it is invited in diverse stages of the product design, It has been observed that the empowerment could to unleash the maximum capacity of the individuals or of the team authorized that did the dear and connected sensation to them with the organization, of such better way emitting their operation and commitment.

Product Prototyping and Concurrent Engineering

Concurrent engineering uses the tools to obtain the communication of the design and to facilitate the process. Many of these tools include the modeled one, the creation of a fast prototype, and control systems of the document. The planning systems are used to help to develop the material channels and to handle valuations of the production. The creation of a fast prototype, and the software of control of the document for the putting in practice is very important in of concurrent engineering. The digital world has moved at a new level in the development of the engineering design. The recent advances in creation of a fast prototype are transforming the engineers of the way and the manufacturers are approaching design and the development of manufacture. Then the companies and the personnel directing adopt the solid modeled one, can hook to the development and the validation of the totally digital design. The implications are reduced costs of the development, reduced readjustment, and improved visualization of the product. An additional tool put in the product development and the equipment are the use of the creation of a fast prototype after digital validation of the design. This allows that we take what we thought we could outside have perfected in print of the computer and `towards a prototype of operation in a question of hours without the equipment of the pre-production or the expensive processes. The printed part resulting is 3 dimensional ones, the plastic part that can be really used in the use. The pieces can be mounted, be held, be beaten, be sanded, and be painted to watch and to feel exactly like the attempt of product calculation. These plastic pieces can be used, for example, with the validation of the assembly of the design, the real validation of manufacture, molds or the components of manufacture for the professional operations, commercialization, fairs, and the verification short of the design of the client.

Examples of Concurrent Engineering

The aeronautical systems group at “Lockheed Corporation” recently developed and integrated of Corporation called “Calfab”. This mini-factory uses the automated disposition and the manufacture and has shortened the time that takes for the design and the manufacture of metal pieces of leaf as of 52 days 2 days – a reduction of the 96 percent. Used metal to travel 2500 feet between the several machines and now travels only 150 feet.

Another example of the use of Concurrent Engineering can be found in General Electric’s Aircraft Engines Division’s approach for the development of the engine for the new F/A-18E/F. It used several collocated, multi-functional design and development teams to merge the design and manufacturing process. The teams achieved 20% to 60% reductions in design and procurement cycle times during the full-scale component tests which preceded full engine testing. Problems surfaced earlier and were dealt with more efficiently than they would have been with the traditional development process. Cycle times in the design and fabrication of some components have dropped from an estimated 22 weeks to 3 weeks. Another example concerns Boeing’s Ballistic Systems Division where Concurrent Engineering was used in 1988 to develop a mobile launcher for the MX missile and was able to reduce design time by 40% and cost by 10% in building the prototype.

European Space Agency (ESA) also uses Concurrent Engineering for Integrated and faster product development. The Concurrent Design Facility(CDF) is the European Space Agency main assessment center for future space missions and industrial review. Located at ESTEC, ESA’s technical center in the Netherlands, it has been operational since early 2000. As suggested by its name, the CDF uses concurrent engineering methodology to perform effective, fast and cheap space mission studies. Equipped with state of the art network of computers, multimedia devices and software tools, the CDF allow team of experts to perform design studies during working sessions. CDF activities are conducted in sessions: plenary meetings in which representatives of all space engineering domains participate, from the early phases (requirement analysis) to the end of the design (costing). Even those disciplines that were traditionally involved at a later stage of the process are given the opportunity to participate from the beginning and to identify trends that might later invalidate the design. The CDF design room has been designed and equipped with all the relevant hardware and software tools, with the aim of creating an effective communication and data interchange environment among team members. ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) has successfully demonstrated the capability to use Space System Concurrent Engineering to overcome the communication gaps between the “designer” (who produces design information) and the “user” (who utilizes the design information) enhancing the in-house capability to perform feasibility studies in a very effective and interdisciplinary manner. Many candidate missions have taken advantage of the new capabilities offered by the CDF, reducing the pre-Phase A (preliminary design) study duration from several months to a few weeks while increasing design quality. This has been in part due to the use of the CDF-IDM, the integrated design model.

Polaroid Corp.’s Captiva instant camera is also the result of a Concurrent Engineering approach, as a result of which Polaroid was able to make literally hundreds of working prototypes. Throughout the process, development was handled by cross-functional teams. There are few lazy manufacturing companies that have not pointed at least a reduction of the 50 percent in the time that takes to send a new product of the idea to the production. The companies such “Xerox” has obtained this goal already.  Apple is one of the companies that have employed the approach to the fullest and benefited from it. Toyota is another well-known company that has successfully utilized the concurrent method. The company managed to develop the product development system where employees practice the approach by reasoning, developing, and communicating about sets of solutions in parallel and relatively independently.

Few organizations have pushed east concept the point of having a strategy of corporative design or a way to project the design and the planning full-range of all products five years in the future, but this one is coming. It is the rare company that it has a strategy of the innovation that includes decisions on the business and new products, the risk, and the production. The good ideas have a unique quality of the motivation. People obtain moved envelope they and will be possible competition and discord on her origin. However, the majority of the ideas – good or bad never they are acted on any close individual, groups, and, especially, companies.