Purchasing's Role in a Concurrent Engineering Environment

In this article, early purchasing involvement in the design and development of a product is examined. Purchasing impacts are effective when they are an integral part of a concurrent engineering environment. In this environment, planned purchasing contributions, along with a number of other factors, are included in the early stages of new product design. The article proposes and explores potential areas of collaboration between purchasing and design. The areas of collaboration include, but are not limited to, developing specifications, interchangeable parts, part standardization and simplification, value analysis, part substitutions, part exclusions, and a variety of other miscellaneous areas.