Integrated engineering environments for large complex products

An introduction is given to the Engineering Design Centre at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, along with a brief explanation of the main focus towards large made-to-order products. Three key areas of research at the Centre, which have evolved as a result of collaboration with industrial partners from various sectors of industry, are identified as (1) decision support and optimisation, (2) design for lifecycle, and (3) design integration and co-ordination. A summary of the unique features of large made-to-order products is then presented, which includes the need for integration and co-ordination technologies. Thus, an overview of the existing integration and co-ordination technologies is presented followed by a brief explanation of research in these areas at the Engineering Design Centre. A more detailed description is then presented regarding the co-ordination aspect of research being conducted at the Engineering Design Centre, in collaboration with the CAD Centre at the University of Strathclyde. Concurrent Engineering is acknowledged as a strategy for improving the design process, however design coordination is viewed as a principal requirement for its successful implementation. That is, design co-ordination is proposed as being the key to a mechanism that is able to maximise and realise any potential opportunity of concurrency. Thus, an agentoriented approach to co-ordination is presented, which incorporates various types of agents responsible for managing their respective activities. The co-ordinated approach, which is implemented within the Design Co-ordination System, includes features such as resource management and monitoring, dynamic scheduling, activity direction, task enactment, and information management. An application of the Design Co-ordination System, in conjunction with a robust concept exploration tool, shows that the computational design analysis involved in evaluating many design concepts can be performed more efficiently through a co-ordinated approach

Concurrent engineering: effective deployment strategies

This paper provides a comprehensive insight into current trends and developments in Concurrent Engineering for integrated development of products and processes with the goal of completing the entire cycle in a shorter time, at lower overall cost and with fewer engineering design changes after product release. The evolution and definition of Concurrent Engineering are addressed first, followed by a concise review of the following elements of the concurrent engineering approach to product development: Concept Development: The Front-End Process, identifying Customer Needs and Quality Function Deployment, Establishing Product Specifications, Concept Selection, Product Architecture, Design for Manufacturing, Effective Rapid Prototyping, and The Economics of Product Development. An outline of a computer-based tutorial developed by the authors and other graduate students funded by NASA ( accessible via the world-wide-web ). is provided in this paper. A brief discussion of teamwork for successful concurrent engineering is included, t'ase histories of concurrent engineering implementation at North American and European companies are outlined with references to textbooks authored by Professor Menon and other writers. A comprehensive bibliography on concurrent engineering is included in the paper