Organizational Approaches to the Implementation of Simultaneous Engineering

Discusses the advent of simultaneous engineering as the new manufacturing paradigm, and speculates about the organizational consequences of this new manufacturing method. To decrease the time from product inspection through prototype manufacture, it is necessary to instil a knowledge of process capabilities into the design process. Simultaneous engineering stresses design of product and production process together with design of assembly, quality control, and field service, that is the complete production cycle. There are many ways that a product can be designed to allow simplification of the product manufacture. This new method has necessitated new forms of internal organization of the company through blurring between different divisions of a company and the creation of multifunctional teams composed of domain experts from every stage of production. This new manufacturing mode has also redefined the relationship between the companies and their vendors. Because of greater technological interdependence, and even without any formal ties, concludes that long‐term relationships are becoming more and more important in many industries.