Concurrent engineering

Abstract: The Palo Alto Collaborative Testbed (PACT), a concurrent engineering infrastructure that encompasses multiple sites, subsystems, and disciplines, is discussed. The PACT systems include NVisage, a distributed knowledge-based integration environment for design tools; DME (Device Modeling Environment), a model formulation and simulation environment; Next-Cut, a mechanical design and process planning system; and Designworld, a digital electronics design, simulation, assembly, and testing system. The motivations for PACT and the significance of the approach for concurrent engineering is discussed. Initial experiments in distributed simulation and incremental redesign are reviewed, and PACT's agent-based architecture and lessons learned from the PACT experiments are described. >

Abstract: Not well documented to date, the design and development system of Toyota Motor Corporation contributes greatly to the firm's remarkably consistent growth in market share and its enviable profit per vehicle. This article, which extends the authors' previous study of the Toyota product development system, reports on further data collection in Japan and at the Toyota Technical Center in Michigan. Findings substantiate the authors' previous claims about the product development system and lead them to conclude that Toyota is "set-based" in its approaches. Set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE) begins by broadly considering sets of possible solutions (in parallel and relatively independently) and gradually narrowing the set of possibilities to converge on a final solution. Gradually eliminating weaker solutions increases the likelihood of finding the best or better solutions. In this way, Toyota can move more quickly toward convergence and production than their traditional, "point-based" counterparts. The authors develop the SBCE idea by describing three principles that guide Toyota's decision making in design: (1) simultaneous mapping of the design space according to functional expertise, (2) "integration by intersection" of mutually acceptable functional refinements introduced by the design and manufacturing engineering groups, and (3) establishment of feasibility before commitment. The authors also present a conceptual framework tied to the Toyota development system and discuss why the SBCE principles lead to highly effective product development. Findings suggest that a change to a distributed, concurrent engineering environment should involve a corresponding change in design method to a set-based process. Product development organizations able to master and apply SBCE principles and Toyota's principles for integrating systems and cultivating organizational knowledge may be able to radically improve their design and development processes.

Abstract: In an attempt to improve the design of products and reduce design changes, cost, and time to market, concurrent engineering or life cycle engineering has emerged as an effective approach to addressing these issues in today's competitive global market. As over 70% of the total life cycle cost of a product is committed at the early design stage, designers are in a position to substantially reduce the life cycle cost of the products they design, by giving due consideration to life cycle cost implications of their design decisions. Increasing recognition of cost competition has spurred the development of methodologies such as design for manufacturability, design for assembly (DFA), design for producibility, design for maintainability and design for quality, in the design for 'X' realm. Although these methodologies have for the most part proven successful in reducing cost, the design evaluation criterion in most of these methodologies is not cost. Therefore methodologies and tools are needed to directly provid...