Ensuring success for your concurrent engineering project
If you have ever walked into a store, not knowing what you are going to buy, but found exactly what you wanted, then you have experience what is called in the industry as concurrent engineering. Sometimes it is impossible to know upfront what you want, other times figuring out what you need will take twice as long as simply exploring some of the options. Engineers have learned to leverage these situations through concurrent engineering, but this process comes with some risks. Below you will find some helpful tips and warnings to steer clear from some of the typical pitfalls in the concurrent engineering process.
Concurrent engineering is a deviation from the well-known V-Model development process, which typically requires developing the requirements first and only thereafter to start the design. Concurrent engineering thus implies that the design team already starts to design, before all the requirements are clear.
To manage the design process within concurrent engineering involves looking beyond the technical design of the solution. Team synergy, risks and requirements management also influences the success of the project.
The team synergy does not only refer to the design team collaboration, but also that of the communication between stakeholders, client representatives and business interests. To facilitate the effective execution teams typically consist of a project manager, technical or requirements manager and a development team working together to provide a solution for a function owner. Technical managers provide an important pivot point in the start of the project and should rely on their years of experience to prioritize the requirements that need to be fixed as early as possible.
One of the critical steps that is often overlooked in the start of a project, is to firstly explore the design space. The design space represents all the possible designs that will fulfill all the functions within the constraints of the project. The requirements specification should provide clear boundaries for the design and should be written as open as possible so as not to over constrain the design team. The technical manager has the responsibility of capturing the boundaries as clear as possible, as wide as possible and also to provide clear guidelines of what features would result in an optimal design.
As the requirements baseline converges to the complete set, the technical manager and the development team start to collaborate on concepts. During the concepting phase the technical manager should ensure that a clear architecture is also available for the design as a framework, but the technical manager should only participate in the brainstorming of the design as a check to help keep the design iterations within the feasible design domain.
The impact of concurrent engineering on the project must be phased out as soon as possible in the project. This implies that the requirements baseline must be defined, documented, and agreed as soon as possible.
Finally concurrent engineering is a process that leverages on the experience from the experience of the team. There should be ample time for alignment, brainstorming, discussion, and review so that as little as possible is communicated through documentation. Concurrent Engineering should ultimately be seen as the process of cultivating understanding and effectively converging at an optimal solution.
