INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT (IJPTM) CONCURRENT ENGINEERING: AN EFFECTIVE ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

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1 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT (IJPTM) International Journal of Production Technology and Management (IJPTM), ISSN ISSN (Print) ISSN (Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January - April (2013), pp IAEME: Journal Impact Factor (2013): (Calculated by GISI) IJPTM I A E M E CONCURRENT ENGINEERING: AN EFFECTIVE ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT STRATEGY Dr. V. Venkataramana 1 Dr. Yadavalli Basavaraj 2 Prof. Banakara Nagaraj 3 1 Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ballari Institute of Technology and Management, Bellary , Karnataka, India 2 Professor and Head Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ballari Institute of Technology and Management, Bellary , Karnataka, India 3 Asst.Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ballari Institute of Technology and Management, Bellary , Karnataka, India ABSTRACT The paper provides a comprehensive insight into current trends and developments in Concurrent Engineering for integrated development of products and processes with the goal of completing the entire cycle in a shorter time, at lower overall cost and with fewer engineering design changes after product launch. The evolution and definition of Concurrent Engineering are addressed first, followed by a concise review of the elements of the concurrent engineering approach to product development and the economics of the same. Discussion of teamwork for successful concurrent engineering, with deployment strategies is included. Key Words: concurrent engineer, product development, prototyping, team work, over the wall, deployment 1. INTRODUCTION Concurrent Engineering (CE) has become the new norm in new product development across the companies worldwide, for organizing and managing all aspects of the product process design and development activity for their new products. CE is an engineering management approach which enables the integrated development of products and processes with the goal of completing the entire cycle in a shorter time at lower overall cost and with fewer engineering design changes. This approach is also referred as Integrated Product Development, Simultaneous Engineering, Life Cycle Engineering, Parallel Engineering, and Team Engineering. 11

2 2. DEFINITION The generally accepted definition of CE as formulated by Winner, R.J. Pennell 1, is a systematic approach to the integrated design of products and their related processes, including manufacture and support and this approach is intended to cause the developers, from the outset to consider all elements of the product life cycle, from conception through disposal, including quality, cost, schedule and user requirements. This approach requires a high level of teamwork and simultaneous involvement of all company functional disciplines very early in the product design process to enhance the overall product life cycle. Effective implementation of CE can benefit companies with greater customer satisfaction, lower cost, higher quality and impressive reductions in time to market. 3. HISTORY The history of CE, consists of three periods, the first is the historical application of the ideas without recognition of a formal structure typically took place before the Second World War. Second phase, which continued through early 1980 s, the idea of CE apparently lost, or at least prevented from being used in the design environment. The third period of CE s history, from the early 80 s through present, is characterized by the resurrection of ideas from the first period along with new tools and methodology, which were used to adapt to the contemporary design and development environment. The concepts fundamental to CE can be traced back when design, marketing, production and the target customers were the same person or very small specialized team, the idea of their cooperation and designs reflecting knowledge of all the downstream requirements is natural. CE has not been the sole domain of theoretical academics but is well demonstrated in industry 12. The modern need for CE is the increase of size and complexity of industry and factors lead to the rebirth of CE over the past 20 years are not only increased competition, accelerated development requirements, increased quality requirements. This period of expansion is marked with increasing over management and sectionalisation in industry which caused sequential engineering to develop. The potential of this is great using the skills of many people it creates a potential reservoir of skill, knowledge and experience far greater than any individual could ever posses. The Ford Motor Company historically utilized many of the ideas found in modern CE, over the last two decades, expended a great deal of energy to reintroduce the same ideas in a modernization and evolved form. The philosophy of CE is not entirely novel, Pioneers of the automobile industry, Henry Ford and Ransom Olds, practiced to a certain extent the philosophy of concurrent engineering 13 during early years, ( ). Some demonstrations of CE came out of American industry during the Second World War. The US developed not only an immense production capacity of war material, but also designed and built the necessary equipment in highly compressed timeframes with high quality results. A specific and rather impressive example is the design of the P-51 fighter demonstrates what could be done with the combination of CE, time pressure and the willingness to utilize progressive technology. US reintroduced CE in 1982 by DARPA (Defence Advanced Projects Agency) initiated a study to look for ways to improve concurrency in the design process, with research being carried out by IDA (Institute for Defence Analysis). Another important influence to the reinvention to implement CE over the past 20 years is the evolution of CATIA, a powerful CAD and integrated design, modelling and manufacturing 12

3 system. Avions Marcel Dassault, a French aeronautical company started working with CADAM systems in Further in 1985, CATIA V.2 was released with fully integrated drafting, solid and robotics functions. It took a couple of more years before IBM joined and CATIA was used in the USA LITERATURE REVIEW Author s like Prasad 3, Syan and Menon 5, Ulrich and Eppinger 6 discussed the general insights of the fundamentals of CE approach to product development, Revolutionizing by Wheelwright and Clark 8 referring instances of effective and ineffective product development to emphasize the success of CE, further company's ability to bring a variety of superior products to market quicker than its competitors will make it successful and ensure corporate survival in today's highly competitive global market where only the robust and adaptive companies will survive. Ulrich and Eppinger provided a sound CE methodology to implement a strong customer focused approach for product design and development to ensure manufacturability and success in the market. Carter and Baker 2, discussed implementation issues forces of change that firms must contend with in competitive product design and the ways that these forces can be effectively managed. This includes implementation of multifunctional teams reduce the time-to-market cycle, total design integrated methods. Pugh 4 and Vesey 7 addressed the importance of satisfying customer needs, effect of time to market as on the profitability of new products. They focused on the need for speed as a critical success factor for firms in the 1990 s. 5. TRADITIONAL DESIGN PARADIGMS If CE is the new and preferred approach, what then is the old approach which we are seeking to replace and what was wrong with it? In comparative discussions, the traditional approach to engineering design has been assigned the following self-evocative labels - Overthe-wall (or) Serial Engineering, Sequential Engineering, etc. In the old approach a designer translated his perception of customer requirements into a concept design and final detail design which was tossed over-the-wall (Figure 1) to manufacturing engineering and other functional disciplines that were required to overcome any obstacles in translating the design to a satisfactory product, which confirms to all customer specifications and expectations. Product Concept Performance Manufacturing Customers Barrier Wall Marketing Design & Manufacturing Engineer Production Figure1. Traditional product development process - over-the-wall 13

4 Poor design decisions which in most cases could have been avoided, if there had been more discussions during the formative periods of the preliminary design, between the designer and other downstream functional disciplines. In many cases where highly innovative concepts and processes are part of the product design, even such dialogue among the product development team would be insufficient and iterative cycles of prototyping may be necessary to lead to a right first time of product design. Old approach to design assumes that many designers do not consult all requisite downstream functional disciplines leading to longer time at higher overall cost and with many engineering design changes which are not acceptable by any product development company in today s global market. 6. THE MAJOR ELEMENTS OF CONCURRENT ENGINEERING (1) Concept Development (2) Identifying Customer Needs (3) Establishing Product Specifications (4) Concept Selection (5) Product Architecture (6) Design for Manufacturing (7)Effective Prototyping (8) Product Development Economics 7. IMPORTANCE OF TEAMING AND TEAMWORK CE which merits close attention is TEAMING and the processes to be deployed which will engender effective teamwork, to produce high functioning teams which seems to be evident in most successful product developments. Formulating guidelines for teamwork is difficult because they have to be customized to the specific cultural and national characteristics of a given team. Thus, teamwork is a very natural part of the way in which Japanese companies have operated for many decades, whereas in most western countries individualism is the norm and developing teamwork requires substantial effort and dedication, to create truly high-functioning teams. 8. SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF CE There are a many potential influencing factors on the adoption of CE. These include increased cooperation required by new manufacturing technologies, the change in the availability/cost of communication and information technologies, internal reluctance to restructuring out of the fear of losing power, the level and type of training received by engineers and finally a widespread shift towards shortened lead times. 8.1 Elements of Deployment Strategy Support from senior management The needs to be a common perception, high priority need for organizational change to remain competitive and survive. Organizational culture for successful formation of multidisciplinary functioning teams for product and process development. 14

5 8.2 Essential Strategic Elements Formation of multidisciplinary teams. Maintain communication and coordination across different disciplines and organizations involved with the product development. Deployment of TQM methods and principles. Organization culture towards employee s continuous improvement. Use of systems simulation, rapid prototyping for iterative design. Integration and application of information systems at every key level of the organization. Timely and effective training programs for employees at all levels. Employee ownership ensures high quality performance. Modifying practices which are obstacles to early design changes. Sufficient empowerment of responsibility and authority to address unprecedented challenges. 8.3 Guidelines for Successful Implementations Do not undertake CE until the company is truly ready for this. The deployment of CE is difficult and challenging for a new complex product line in the company. It involves cultural change at every level of the organization, which must be receptive to such drastic change of approach. Tools and techniques without a strong CE culture will not yield the full potential of possible benefits. Senior level management with strong commitment for successful initiation with measurable benefits that are monitored are made known to employees 9. CONCLUDING REMARKS Concurrent Engineering and its synonyms are now an integral part of the engineering management approach to the development and design of new products and processes across the global market. For most product development companies, especially automotive, defence, CE is no longer an option it is a necessity for survival in the highly cost quality schedule oriented competitive environment which now prevails worldwide. The paper explored the origins of concurrent engineering, outlined the definition and elaborated on the tools and processes deployed to attain concurrent engineering, which provides insights into all aspects of CE. This advocacy of CE will result in more widespread adoption in diverse fields such as Service Industry, Office Administration, Healthcare, Business and Banking and soon in countries like India, South Africa etc. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Winner, R.J. Pennell J.P., Bertend H.E. The Role of Concurrent Engineering in Weapon System Acquisition, IDA Report R-338, Institute for Defense Systems Analysis, Alexandra VA,

6 2. Carter, Donald E. and Baker, Barbara S., Concurrent Engineering: The Product Development Environment for the 1990's, Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park, Prasad, B., and Concurrent Engineering Fundamentals: Integrated product and process, Volume I, Prentice Hall, Pugh, Stuart, TOTAL DESIGN: Integrated Methods for Successful Product Engineering, Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park, 1991, Syan C.S. and Menon, V., Concurrent Engineering: concepts, implementation and practice, Chapman and Hall, London, Ulrich, Karl T. Eppinger, Steven D., Product Design and Development, McGraw-Hill, San Francisco, Vesey, Joseph T., "Meet the New Competitors: They Think in terms of Speed-to-market," LE, December 1990, pp Wheelwright, Steven C. and Clark, Kim B., Revolutionizing Product Development, The Free Press, New York, Shina, S.G., "Successful implementation of Concurrent Engineering Products and processes, Van Nostrand Reinhold, Smith, P.S. and Reinertsen D.G., "Developing products in half the time", Nostrand Reinhold, Menon U., Rapid Prototyping of hardware and software, Chapter in "Integrated Product, Process and Enterprise Design", B. Wang (Ed), Gordon & Breach Ltd., London Ziemke and Spann. Concurrent Engineering s roots in the World War II Concurrent Engineering: Contemporary issues and modern design tools 1993, pp Smith s paper sites Hyeon et al. page 5) Eveans, B. (1988) Mechanical Engineering, February, pp The Dassault Systemes corporate site, Ford, Automotive Service Technology Department, Raju B S, Chandra Sekhar U, Drakshayani D N and Chockalingam K, Recent Trends in Rapid Product Development, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering & Technology (IJMET), Volume 4, Issue 2, 2013, pp , ISSN Print: , ISSN Online: P.S.Senthil Kumar, Dr. S.Balasubramanian, Dr. R.K.Suresh and Dr. S.Arularasu, Pairing of Intelligence Design Concept Method and Kano Model for Product Development, International Journal of Design and Manufacturing Technology (IJDMT), Volume 1, Issue 1, 2010, pp. 1-13, ISSN Print: , ISSN Online: