Concurrent Engineering

Concurrent engineering refers to an approach used in product development in which the

functions of design engineering, manufacturing engineering, and other functions are integrated to
reduce the elapsed time required to bring a new product to market. Also called simultaneous
engineering, it might be thought of as the organizational counterpart to CAD/CAM technology.
Concurrent engineering or Simultaneous Engineering is a methodology of restructuring
the product development activity in a manufacturing organization using a cross functional team
approach and is a technique adopted to improve the efficiency of product design and reduce the
product development cycle time. This is also sometimes referred to as Parallel Engineering.
In the traditional approach to launching a new product, the two functions of design engineering
and manufacturing engineering tend to be separated and sequential as illustrated in Figure
25.5(a). The product design department develops the new design, sometimes without much
consideration given to the manufacturing capabilities of the company. There is little opportunity
for manufacturing engineers to offer advice on how the design might be altered to make it more
manufacturable. It is as if a wall exists between design and manufacturing. When the design
engineering department completes the design, it tosses the drawings and specifications over the
wall, and only then does process planning begin.
By contrast, in a company that practices concurrent engineering, the manufacturing engineering
department becomes involved in the product development cycle early on, providing advice on how
the product and its components can be designed to facilitate manufacture and assembly.

The Concurrent Engineering tools can be broken into the following main technological
groups:
Knowledge based engineering, production tools and communication tools
Relational database management systems for data management
Work flow automation and product life cycle management (PLM) systems
Decision support systems
Enterprise resource planning systems
Boeing Commercial Airplane Group uses the CATIA solid modeling product developed by
Dassault Systems of France.
Advantages of Concurrent Engineering:
Holistic Approach to Product Development
Cost of changes in Design
Intensive teamwork between product development, production planning and
manufacturing.

 Reduction in lead time which reduces cost of production and guarantees better quality.
Concurrent engineering reduces the product development time significantly. Elimination
of the errors in design appreciably reduces the possibility of time overrun, enabling the
development schedule to be maintained.
The development cost and product cost can be reduced by proper and careful design.
A large number of design changes are identified and implemented at the beginning or in
the early phase of product development cycle.
Better communication among the various departments.
Concurrent approach to product design results in products with fewer errors. Therefore
CE, avoids the loss of goodwill of the customers due to poorly engineered products.
The entire product development team looks at each and every aspect of products cost,
specifications, aesthetics, ergonomics, performance and maintainability. The resulting
product will naturally satisfy the customer.
The multi-disciplinary approach has the advantage of several inputs which can be focused
effectively early in the design process.

Integration of product and process development and logistics support

Closer attention to the needs of customers
Adoption of new technologies
Continuous review of design and development process
Rapid and automated information exchange
Cross functional teams
Rapid prototyping

Disadvantages of Concurrent Engineering:

The information that comes up usually during later phases such as assembly constraints
or product costs can be taken into account during the design stage itself.
So the number of constraints which have to be considered in early phases increases
Key factors influencing the success of CE:
There are several examples of successful implementation of CE. Hewlett Packard is one
such example. Its joint venture in Japan, Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard, reported amazing
improvements after implementing CE. Over a five year period, R & Ds cycle time decreased by
35%, manufacturing costs declined 42%, inventory dropped 64% and field failure rates fell by
60%. Meanwhile its market share tripled and profits doubled.

The successful implementation of concurrent engineering is the development of Scooty

moped and other products by TVS Motors Ltd. in India.
The story of the development of Neon Car in USA is a typical example of success of
concurrent engineering. The planning of the car started in August 1990.