CONCURRENT ENGINEERING S.P.Tayal Professor, M.M.University,Mullana- 133203, Distt.Ambala (Haryana) M: 08059930976, E-Mail: sptayal@gmail.com Abstract It is a work methodology based on the parallelization of tasks (i.e. performing tasks concurrently). It refers to an approach used in product development in which functions of design engineering, manufacturing engineering and other functions are integrated to reduce the elapsed time required to bring a new product to the market. As mentioned above, part of the design process is to ensure that the entire product's life cycle is taken into Keywords: product development, design engineering, manufacturing, conceptual designs, design cycles, design phases 1. Introduction As mentioned above, part of the design process is to ensure that the entire product's life cycle is taken into The concurrent engineering method is a still a relatively new design management system, but has had the opportunity to mature in recent years to become a well-defined systems approach towards optimizing engineering design cycles[1]. Because of this, concurrent engineering has gathered much attention from industry and has been implemented in a multitude of companies, organizations and universities, most notably in the aerospace industry. The basic premise for concurrent engineering revolves around two concepts. The first is the idea that all elements of a product s life-cycle, from functionality, producibility, assembly, testability, maintenance issues, environmental impact and finally disposal and recycling, should be taken into careful consideration in the early design phases[2]. The second concept is that the preceding design activities should all be occurring at the same time, or concurrently. The overall goal being that the concurrent nature of these processes significantly increases productivity and product quality, aspects that are obviously important in today's fast-paced market[3]. This philosophy is key to the success of concurrent engineering because it allows for errors and redesigns to be discovered early in the design process when the project is still in a more abstract and possibly digital realm. By locating and fixing these issues early, the design team can avoid what often become costly errors as the project moves to more complicated computational models and eventually into the physical realm [4]. As mentioned above, part of the design process is to ensure that the entire product's life cycle is taken into 676
One of the most important reasons for the huge success of concurrent engineering is that by definition it redefines the basic design process structure that was common place for decades. This was a structure based on a sequential design flow, sometimes called the Waterfall Model [5,6]. Concurrent engineering significantly modifies this outdated method and instead opts to use what has been termed an iterative or integrated development method[7]. The difference between these two methods is that the Waterfall method moves in a completely linear fashion by starting with user requirements and sequentially moving forward to design, implementation and additional steps until you have a finished product. The problem here is that the design system does not look backwards or forwards from the step it is on to fix possible problems. In the case that something does go wrong, the design usually must be scrapped or heavily altered. On the other hand, the iterative design process is more cyclic in that, as mentioned before, all aspects of the life cycle of the product are taken into account, allowing for a more evolutionary approach to design [8]. The difference between the two design processes can be seen graphically in Figure 1. Figure 1. Waterfall or Sequential Development Method vs. Iterative Development Method A significant part of this new method is that the individual engineer is given much more say in the overall design process due to the collaborative nature of concurrent engineering. Giving the designer ownership plays a large role in the productivity of the employee and quality of the product that is being produced. This stems from the fact that people given a sense of gratification and ownership over their work tend to work harder and design a more robust product, as opposed to an employee that is assigned a task with little say in the general process. By making this sweeping change, many organizational and managerial challenges arise that must be taken into special consideration when companies and organizations move towards such a system. From this standpoint, issues such as the implementation of early design reviews, enabling communication between engineers, software compatibility and opening the design process up to allow for concurrency creates problems of its own[9]. Similarly, there must be a strong basis for teamwork since the overall success of the method relies on the ability of engineers to effectively work together. Often this can be a difficult obstacle, but is something that must be tackled early to avoid later problems [10]. Similarly, now more than ever, software is playing a huge role in the engineering design process. Be it from CAD packages to finite element analysis tools, the ability to quickly and easily modify digital models to predict future design problems is hugely important no matter what design process you are using. However, in concurrent engineering software s role becomes much more significant as the collaborative nature must take into the account that each engineer's design models must be able to talk to each other in order to successfully utilize the concepts of concurrent engineering. 677
2. Need for concurrent engineering Intoday's business world, corporations must be able to react to the changing market needs rapidly, effectively, and responsively. They must be able to reduce their time to market and adapt to the changing environments. Decisions must be made quickly and they must be done right the first time out. Corporations can no longer waits time repeating tasks, thereby prolonging the time it takes to bring new products to market. Therefore, concurrent engineering has emerged as way of bringing rapid solutions to product design and development process. Concurrent engineering is indisputably the wave of the future for new product development for all companies regardless of their size, sophistication, or product portfolio. In order to be competitive, corporations must alter their product and process development cycle to be able to complete diverse tasks concurrently. This new process will benefit the company, although it will require a large amount of refinement in its implementation. This is because; concurrent engineering is a process that must be reviewed and adjusted for continuous improvements of engineering and business operations. 2.1 Theconcurrent engineering approach Concurrent engineering is a business strategy which replaces the traditional product development process with one in which tasks are done in parallel and there is an early consideration for ever y aspect of a product's development process. This strategy focuses on the optimization and distribution of a firm's resources in the design and development process to ensure an effective and efficient product development process. It mandates major changes within the organizations and firms that use it, due to the people and process integration requirements. Collaboration is a must for individuals, groups, departments, and separate organizations within the firm. Therefore, it cannot be applied at leisure. A firm must be dedicated to the long term implementation, appraisal, and continuous revision of a concurrent engineering process. 2.2 Strategic plan of concurrent engineering Concurrent engineering is recognized as a strategic weapon that businesses must use for effective and efficient product development. It is not a trivial task, but a complex strategic plan that demands full corporate commitment, therefore strong leadership and teamwork go hand and hand with successful concurrent engineering programs. 3. How to apply concurrent engineering 3.1 Commitment, planning, and leadership Concurrent engineering is not a trivial process to apply. If firms are going to commit to concurrent engineering then they must first devise a plan. This plan must create organizational change throughout the entire company or firm. There must be a strong commitment from the firm's leadership in order to mandate the required organizational changes from the top down. Concurrent engineering without leadership will have no clear direction or goal. On the other hand, concurrent engineering with leadership, management support, and proper planning will bring success in today's challenging market place. 3.2 Continuousimprovement process Concurrent engineering is not a one size fits all solution to a firm's development processes. There are many different aspects of concurrent engineering which may or may not fit in a corporation's development process. Concurrent engineering is only a set of process objectives and goals that have a variety of implementation strategies. Therefore, concurrent engineering is an evolving process that requires continuous improvement and refinement. This continuous improvement cycle consist of planning, implementing, reviewing, and revising. The process must be updated and revised on a regular basis to optimize the effectiveness and benefits in the concurrent engineering development process. 3.3 Communication and collaboration The implementation of concurrent engineering begins by creating a corporate environment that facilitates communication and collaboration not just between individuals, but also between separate organizations and departments within the firm. This may entail major structural changes, re-education of the existing work-force, and/or restructuring of the development process. 4. Basic principles of concurrent engineering Get a strong commitment to from senior management. Establish unified project goals and a clear business mission. 678
Develop a detailed plan early in the process. Continually review your progress and revise your plan. Develop project leaders that have an overall vision of the project and goals. Analyze your market and know your customers. Suppress individualism and foster a team concept. Establish and cultivate cross-functional integration and collaboration. Transfer technology between individuals and departments. Break project into its natural phases. Develop metrics. Set milestones throughout the development process. Collectively work on all parts of project. Reduce costs and time to market. Complete tasks in parallel. 5. When is concurrent engineering used? The majority of a product's costs are committed very early in the design and development process. Therefore, companies must apply concurrent engineering at the onset of a project. This makes concurrent engineering a powerful development tool that can be implemented early in the conceptual design phase where the majority of the a products costs are committed. There are several application in which concurrent engineering may be used. Some primary applications include product research, design, development, re-engineering, manufacturing, and redesigning of existing and new products. In these applications, concurrent engineering is applied throughout the design and development process to enable the firm to reap the full benefits of this process. 6. Why do companies use concurrent engineering? 6.1 Competitiveadvantage The reasons that companies choose to use concurrent engineering is for the clear cut benefits and competitive advantage that concurrent engineering can give them. Concurrent engineering can benefit companies of any size, large or small. While there are several obstacles to initially implementing concurrent engineering, these obstacles are minimal when compared to the long term benefits that concurrent engineering offers. 6.2 Increasedperformance Companies recognize that concurrent engineering is a key factor in improving the quality, dev elopement cycle, production cost, and delivery time of their products. It enables the early discovery of design problems, thereby enabling them to be addressed up front rather than later in the development process. Concurrent engineering can eliminate multiple design revisions, prototypes, and re-engineering efforts and create an environment for designing right the first time. 6.3 Reduceddesign and development times Companies that use concurrent engineering are able to transfer technology to their markets and customers more effectively, rapidly and predictably. They will be able to respond to customers needs and desires, to produce quality products that meet or exceed the consumer's expectations. They will also be able to introduce more products and bring quicker upgrades to their existing products through concurrent engineering practices. Therefore companies use concurrent engineering to produce better quality products, developed in less time, at lower cost, that meets the customer's needs. 7. Conclusions There are several benefits that concurrent engineering can bring, although it is difficult to quantify many of these benefits by using spreadsheets and numbers. These are not only benefits which the participating company will experience, but ultimately the end users or customers also will reap these benefits by having a quality product which fits their needs and in many case, costs them less to purchase. Therefore, concurrent engineering produces a unified profitable corporation and a satisfied consumer. Regardless of the type of application, there are significant benefits to the firms or organizations that use cross functional teams. 679
References [1] Ma, Y., Chen, G. &Thimm, G.; "Paradigm Shift: Unified and Associative Feature-based Concurrent Engineering and Collaborative Engineering", Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, DOI 10.1007/s10845-008-0128-y [2] Kusiak, Andrew; Concurrent Engineering: Automation, Tools and Techniques [3] Quan, W. &Jianmin, H., A Study on Collaborative Mechanism for Product Design in Distributed Concurrent Engineering IEEE [4] Kusiak, Andrew, Concurrent Engineering: Automation, Tools and Techniques [5] The standard waterfall model for systems development, NASA Webpage, November 14, 2008 [6] Kock, N. and Nosek, J., Expanding the Boundaries of E-Collaboration, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Vol 48 No 1, March 2005. [7] Ma, Y., Chen, G., Thimm, G., "Paradigm Shift: Unified and Associative Feature-based Concurrent Engineering and Collaborative Engineering", Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, DOI 10.1007/s10845-008-0128-y [8] Royce, Winston, "Managing the Development of Large Software Systems", Proceedings of IEEE WESCON 26 (August 1970): 1-9. [9] Kusiak, Andrew, "Concurrent Engineering: Automation, Tools and Techniques" [10] Rosenblatt, A. and Watson, G. (1991). "Concurrent Engineering", IEEE Spectrum, July, pp 22-37. 680