Development of an information interchange support system for concurrent engineering design

Scope and method of study. The objective of the research was to validate a model of concurrent engineering design communication and then develop a computer-based prototype information interchange support system to assist new product development process in concurrent engineering environment. The first task of the research was to develop a communication model for the concurrent engineering design process. This developed model identified 4 stages of the engineering design process. Each stage showed involvement of departments that can provide vital information and be a party to the design decision-making process. The model was validated through an industry survey and a case study of the new product development process at the site of our industrial partner. A rigorous statistical analysis was performed on industry wide survey responses to validate the model. A prototype information interchange support system (IISS) was built and tested at the site of our industrial partner by taking the support of the validated model.;Findings and conclusions. The results of research confirm that concurrent engineering teams tend to have different functional units forming core group during the various stages of the product design phase of the new product development process. The result suggests that human resources allocated to a team from various functional areas can be scheduled in an efficient manner by recognizing their levels of involvement appropriately. Second, information technology should be employed to maintain an optimum level of communication between departments. This communication is more detailed among central departments at a particular stage, whereas other departments that are on the periphery need to receive summary information. The IISS developed in Lotus Notes based on these findings helped to take the appropriate information to the right people at the right time in developing new products. This system also helped to keep all product development reports in a single database, generated development history for future use, made the report and document generation process easy for the team members, reduced product development time by form routing, enhanced effective communication between concurrent engineering development team, and made it easy for management to track the product development activities.