This paper describes an approach based upon the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) for identifying, evaluating and optimising one aspect of CE: activity parallelism. Concurrent Engineering (CE) has placed emphasis on the management of the product development process and one of its major benefits is the reduction in lead-time and product cost [1]. One approach that CE promotes for the reduction of lead-time is the simultaneous enactment of activities otherwise known as Simultaneous Engineering. Whilst activity parallelism may contribute to the reduction in lead-time and product cost, the effect of iteration is also recognised as a contributing factor on lead-time, and hence was also combined within the investigation. The paper describes how parallel activities may be identified within the DSM, before detailing how a process may be evaluated with respect to parallelism and iteration using the DSM. An optimisation algorithm is then utilised to establish a near-optimal sequence for the activities with respect to parallelism and iteration. DSM-based processes from previously published research are used to describe the development of the approach
