A German approach to simultaneous engineering

Measures to improve competitiveness have mainly been concentrated in the last few years on the technical and productive areas within companies, with particular emphasis on optimization of the production processes and, later, automation of handling operations and assembly. Hereby the priority aim must be to achieve a significant reduction in the product development time, which in some areas is already much longer than the product life. With increased international competition, expecially following the introduction of the single European market from 1992, these measures will provide the key to safeguarding competitiveness. Simultaneous engineering is a strategy which has been increasingly introduced over the last few years to reduce product development times. It is an all-embracing strategy which aims at ensuring that product development phases run parallel instead of sequentially, as is traditionally the case, with resultant drastic reduction in the planning of product innovations. SE i s also designed to improve product quality and reduce unit costs. As a result of some studies, carried out in Germany the strategic targets of SE may be summed up as follows: - minimization of product development times - improvement in product quality - minimization of unit costs. Successful implementation of SE can only be guaranteed if these targets are pursued simultaneously. Key areas in the achievement of SE targets are as follows: - organization: minimization of interfaces and improvement in project management. - personnel: motivation of staff and introduction of new systems for performance appraisal with geater account taken of attitude to teamwork. - increased and coordinated use of suitable tools and methods. The optimization of the company as an overall system must have priority over the optimization of individual aspects. The IPA in Stuttgart has developed a three-phase approach for the introduction of SE. The three phases are: - Analysis of the company situation with respe