Simultaneous engineering

Over the past twenty years, the industrial world has been bombarded with acronyms that sound like barbaric Anglicisms. We might mention the CAD/CAM (computer aided design/computer aided manufacturing) craze from across the Atlantic, transformed here into CAD/CAM (computer-aided design and manufacturing), or the CIM (computer integrated manufacturing) precursor to our productics.

Without claiming to be exhaustive, our presentation could be completed by mentioning industrial methods from the countries of the Rising Sun, such as Kanban or Taguchi.

One of the latest Japanese trends to invade the industrial market is concurrent engineering. It will be the focus of this study. It is often associated with CALS (computer aided acquisition and logistic support), a purely American product.

Let's not forget that the aim of introducing these tools and methods is to significantly reduce the time it takes to bring a product to market: this is the notion of "time to market". This concern takes on its full significance in times of crisis, when the industrial environment is highly uncertain.

After recalling the usual objectives that companies aim to achieve, we will briefly present the methods available to help them become more competitive from the triple point of view of reducing lead times, cutting costs and improving the quality of the products they offer their customers. We'll then take a look at the background to the emergence of simultaneous engineering, and outline its fundamental principles. This will be followed by an inventory of the advantages for companies wishing to break away from a purely sequential organization of their product design/industrialization/manufacturing activities. We will continue our presentation of simultaneous engineering by examining the constraints involved in its day-to-day application and presenting some of the methods it uses. Project teams and business players are the essential protagonists in an appropriate, redesigned organizational structure. The presentation concludes with a few industrial examples of the introduction and use of simultaneous engineering.