Advances in Concurrent Engineering

Joe Cleetus Concurrent Engineering Research Center West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

Outline

CERC

Elements of CE
Status of CE Acceptance of CE Novel Applications Challenges

Progress in Standards and Groupware

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Definition of CE

CERC

Systematic approach to integrated product development that emphasizes response to customer expectations and embodies team values of cooperation, trust and sharing in such a manner that decision making proceeds with large intervals of parallel working by all life-cycle perspectives, synchronized by comparatively brief exchanges to produce consensus.

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Concept
support design
common pr oduct concept
unified commonproduct pr oduct concept concept

CERC

analysis communications netw ork management

support

materials

design

manufacturing
manufacturing

materials marketing

Team approach

Virtual team approach Networked co-location Unif ied v ision

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Elements of CE

CERC

Structure the TEAM for doing the work with clear ROLES and strong LEADERSHIP and EMPOWERMENT. Sharpen the VISION of what is the goal.

Organize the COMPANY around the WORKFLOW.

NETWORK the organization humanly and electronically. Involve every PERSPECTIVE in the full cycle of decision making from the BEGINNING. Propagate information EARLY. Implement systems for ease of SHARING.

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Elements of CE contd.

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IMPROVE work processes to shorten TIME and increase CONCURRENCY.

COORDINATE around TASKS, and DATA resulting from tasks. Maintain a CUSTOMER-derived slant for assessing status. Resolve CONFLICTS (a) when absolutely necessary (b) by CONSENSUS.

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CERC
Elements of CE Status of CE Acceptance of CE

Novel Applications
Challenges Progress in Standards and Groupware

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CE Status - Process

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Formal assessment of CE practices in organizations (Karandikar 1992) -- Characterizes Processes and support technologies using SEI model. Tool called RACE. Building a library of reusable CE processes by benchmarking the best organizations (Malone 1993). Re-engineering business processes in organizations -a very hot consultancy service (Hammer, Stalk, Bower,..).

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CE Enabling Tech. Goals

Making the Remote look Local

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Making the Distributed look Unified

Making the Heterogeneous look Homogeneous Making the Chaotic look Ordered Capturing Corporate Memory

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CE Status - SW Support
Electronic Mail / Messaging

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Shared Screen WISIWYS

Calendaring and Scheduling Group Decision Support Systems Group Editing Workflow and Document Management Workgroup Products and Utilities Groupware Development Tools

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CE Status - HW Support
New PC Bus to support multimedia New ATM networking protocol New devices for interaction (HHC)

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Wide availability of switched high speed lines (T1)

Hardware compression

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CE Status - Orgn. Trends

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Globalization of business (Mondeo - Ford, Airbus,..).

Lethargic economies forcing layoffs in management ranks. Speeding up of product cycles -- agility and time-tomarket. Contraction of the military budgets forcing development without production.

Fall of the giants -- inability to run large enterprises in centralized fashion.

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CERC

Elements of CE
Status of CE Acceptance of CE Novel Applications Challenges

Progress in Standards and Groupware

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CE Acceptance Orgn. Values

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TEAM Formation and LEADERSHIP Cultivating a sense of teamwork, involving the necessary people, and demonstrating leadership. VISION Communicating a clear vision of a radically different organization. PLAN Need to organize to markets and customers, not products and technology. TIME criticality Making changes quickly .. time is your enemy.
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CE Acceptance Orgn. Values

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CUSTOMER Focus Responding to changes in the environment, and shifting focus to marketing from defense work. Organizing to markets is a new cry. EMPOWERMENT Discouraging managers from approaching CEO unless there is trouble. Organize the COMPANY around the WORKFLOW Stripping two layers of management from org charts brings all top managers closer to buyers' needs.
(Recent overhaul of GM Hughes when Michael Armstrong of IBM took over as CEO in April 1992)

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CE Acceptance - Processes CERC

Citibank automated back office using the analogy of factory processes. Kanban system of Toyota (now widely copied) was itself inspired by the American super-market system. Federal Express, Domino's, Kinko's, and MacDonald's, have reduced consumption of time in every aspect of their business.

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CE Acceptance Technology

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Use of Lotus Notes at Price Waterhouse for sharing corporate memory.

Use of VisionQuest by Marriott Hotel for an electronic meeting room for hire by companies.
Extensive use of electronic mail for coordination in a growing number of companies.

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CE Acceptance - Metrics

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Product development times compressed by 40 to 60% in automotive firms (Ford, Chrysler).

Conflicting requirements reconciled in semiconductor development (Intel - Pentium).

Time spent in meetings reduced by 90%.

Number of ECOs after first-ship reduced drastically.

Variable 15 to 26 days to deliver car to customer reduced to certain 6 days (Toyota).

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CERC

Elements of CE
Status of CE Acceptance of CE

Novel Applications
Challenges

Progress in Standards and Groupware

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SW Engineering

CERC

Process Maturity Model Collaborative Inspection, Verification, and Validation

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Health Care
Automating flow of information in a hospital.

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Organizing and archiving lifelong patient information for universal, but controlled, access (CPR).
Multimedia data entry at source to reduce errors and ensure comprehensive recording of encounters. Automating qualification and payment of providers by insurers, and eliminating paper.

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Health Care Info. Architecture

ARTEMIS (CERC-ARPA)

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Role-oriented interfaces
Applications Coordination Resource Model Information Infrastructure

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Design for Disposability

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High environmental cost of disposal of product at the end of its useful life is a major concern for society. New discipline called Design for Disposability will tackle pollution at source (at the design stage) by the engineers who are responsible for nearly all the pollution in the world! Proposed take-back laws in Germany for automobiles, already being acted on by BMW, VW, etc.

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Concurrent Epidemiology

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Streamlining process of accident data gathering at source. Remote collection and transmission of records from distributed heterogeneous data bases of State agencies. Generation of software procedures for a variety of remote data access queries. Integration with local statistical applications.

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Concurrent Epidemiology

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State agency DB1 NIOSH Manager/ Scientist Field Investigator DB2

County clerk

DB3

Streamline process of collection, transmission, storage and statistical aggregation of injury incident data to discover causes and prevent injury.
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Earth Observing System

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d a se ce b m Spa sy s te S EO

UNIFIED DYNA MIC RESOURCE MODEL

DAAC DAAC DAAC SCF SCF SCF Comput ing Facilit y Shared W orkspace

Archival

EDOS Data & Operations

EOS Collaborat ory

NA SA Science Network

Users

Colla boration Technology Trans parent Comput ing Testbed for EOS Dat a Products Informat ion Diss emination

EOS Collaboratory
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CERC

Elements of CE
Status of CE Acceptance of CE Novel Applications Challenges

Progress in Standards and Groupware

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Challenges

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Encouraging openness and sharing in organizations, while preserving the necessary confidentiality. Making reward systems reflect the team efforts. Making groupware as easy to use as telephones. Making the new gigabit networks a low-cost and ubiquitous reality, much as roads are.

Developing more natural interfaces for personal computers without increasing cost.

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CERC

Elements of CE
Status of CE Acceptance of CE

Novel Applications
Challenges Progress in Standards and Groupware

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Relevant CE Standards
ATM network protocol. MPEG/JPEG compression standards.

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X-Windows.
TCP/IP and SMTP. EDI for exchanging documents between designers, manufacturers and customers (Defense Dept). SGML for technical manuals in electronic form. CFI Inter-tool data exchange standard for electronics. OSF/DCE.

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Conclusions

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CE is being absorbed into the Enterprise processes.

Technology support is advancing rapidly. Network infrastructure development is moving faster than anticipated.

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