Organizational Requirements

Organizational Requirements

An organization implementing concurrent engineering concepts is quality oriented and focuses on process consistency, with a sound strategy to characterize each process, its costs, and its value.

To achieve these norms, one or more of the following techniques are frequently utilized:

Total quality Management (TQM) is a management philosophy that incorporates quality into every step of the product life cycle, by everyone in the company.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) consists of a pair of spreadsheets that relate customer attributes to quantitative-engineering characteristics.

The Just in Time (JIT) is the philosophy of providing things, information, or materials just when they are needed with the purpose of reducing inventory costs.

Statistical Process Control (SPC) seeks to monitors quality in the design and manufacturing stage, starting with a thorough knowledge of the link between defects and the manufacturing process.

Design for manufacturing and assembly (DFMA) is a philosophy of design that alerts design engineer to the manufacturing implications of their work.

Role of computer in Concurrent Engineering

The evolving design automatic environment that supports concurrent engineer has seen the power and scope of its tools expand steadily. One interesting area is the relationship between advanced-simulations tool and concurrent engineering.

As simulation technology grows more comprehensive, designers are approaching the capability to produce virtual prototypes that embody all aspects of the products.

It will eventually become possible to model the user interface of a product so that customers can interact directly with the virtual prototypes. Their feedback can then be incorporated into QFD maps, which help redirect the design to accommodate their suggestions.

Concurrent Engineering in A/E/C Industry

Knowingly or not, the A/E/C industry has already adopted some elements of the Concurrent Engineering philosophy when it practices TQM, design for constructability, value engineering, computer-integrated construction, design-build contracts, just-in-time-material deliveries and more recently, partnering.

Concurrent engineering can be implemented in any organization by balancing the following three concepts.

Organization Structures: the organizational structures shoud support the development of team.

Communication Infrastructure: Advance in communication technology are required to link all participants.

Product Development: The analysis of the product life ccle should be carried out during the conception and design phases so that no problems are encountered in downstream phases.

...