Product and service development consists of the movement of a product or service idea from concept through to market availability. This process involves a number of distinct phases and has traditionally been viewed as a linear process involving individual, predetermined steps, each of which required completion before subsequent stages could begin.
The sequential approach is held to have several advantages.
However, this approach has its drawbacks. The separation of expertise can result in problems. Products may be difficult to make, since manufacturing expertise only enters the process once the design has been finalised. They may be inappropriate for customers because of the separation of design from marketing and they may be slow to reach the market since each preceding stage must be complete before the next can begin.
An alternative approach is to consider these various stages as overlapping, co-operative and iterative.
Simultaneous engineering, concurrent engineering, forward engineering, integrated problem solving, parallel engineering, team approach, and lifecycle engineering are some of the terms that have been applied to this over-lapping and integration of design, development, prototyping and manufacturing. This overlapping and integration reduces total development time.
Typically:
The concept is very simple. Execution is more difficult. To be successful, simultaneous engineering must be underpinned by:
For a list of references, see http://www.johnstark.com/pb47.html
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