Management of Concurrent Engineering: Organizational Concepts and a Framework of Analysis

This article examines the concept of concurrent engineering and presents a framework for evaluating its management. The key organizational concepts for managing new product development are first analyzed from a historical perspective. The concurrent engineering approach to new product development is then contrasted with both the traditional sequential and the more recent overlapping problem-solving approaches. Finally, a model for managing current engineering is presented. The model consists of five critical components that may be used by engineering managers for guiding the implementation of their concurrent engineering efforts.