Concurrent Engineering Fundamentals Volumes 1 & 2
Concurrent Engineering Fundamentals Volumes 1 & 2
B. PrasadPrentice-Hall1996 and 1997520 pp. and 528 pp.ISBN 0-13-147463-4 and ISBN 0-13-396946-0£30.50 each
Keyword: Concurrent engineering
Volume 1 gives an integrated view of Product and Process Organisation,discussing management, organisational and cultural concerns. The methodological fields of taxonomy are also covered.
Manufacturing competitiveness is discussed in the first chapter, while life-cycle management techniques are outlined in chapter 2. The third chapter introduces process reengineering and describes several techniques to achieve competitive superiority. Concurrent engineering definitions and co-operative work teams are covered in the following two chapters.
System engineering requires that a product realisation problem is viewed as a"system-centred" problem as opposed to "component centred". This is discussed in chapter 6. Chapters 7 and 8 cover information modelling and the whole system.
The final chapter discusses product realisation taxonomy and constitutes a"state of series of evolution or transformation", leading to maturity of a complete design.
Volume 2 discusses Integrated Product Development (IPD) and consists of ten chapters. The first three chapters cover total value management, concurrent engineering metrics and measures and concurrent function deployment respectively.
Chapter 4 introduces integrated product development and shows that this methodology is geared to take advantage of the product realisation taxonomy. Subsequent chapters cover frameworks and architectures, decision support systems and intelligent information systems. Capturing life-cycle values is discussed in chapter 8.
Chapter 9, Life-cycle Mechanisation, introduces techniques for the integration and transfer of data between commercial computer-based engineering tools and product specific in-house applications. The final chapter; Concurrent Engineering Implementation Guidelines, proposes a set of "Ten Commandments",which serves to guide the product and process iterative aspects of IPD.
Overall these are well laid out and exceptionally well written books,suitable for students, professors, practising engineers and executives who manage concurrent engineering projects.
