Advances in Concurrent Engineering
Joe CleetusConcurrent Engineering Research CenterWest Virginia University, Morgantown,
WV
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Outline
• Elements of CE
• Status of CE
• Acceptance of CE
• Novel Applications
• Challenges
• Progress in Standards and Groupware
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Definition of CE
Systematic approach to integrated product development that emphasizes
response to customer expectationsand embodies
team values of cooperation, trust and sharingin 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
manufacturing
materials
design
support
common product concept
management
unified product concept
design
materials
support
marketing
analysis
communications network
manufacturing
common product concept
Team approach Virtual team approach• Networked co-location • Unified vision
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Elements of CE
• 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.
• 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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• Elements of CE
• Status of CE
• Acceptance of CE
• Novel Applications
• Challenges
• Progress in Standards and Groupware
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CE Status - Process
• 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
• 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
• 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)
• Wide availability of switched high speed lines (T1)
• Hardware compression
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CE Status - Orgn. Trends
• Globalization of business (Mondeo - Ford, Airbus,..).
• Lethargic economies forcing layoffs in management ranks.
• Speeding up of product cycles -- agility and time-to-market.
• 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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• 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 • 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 • 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
• 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
• 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
• 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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• Elements of CE
• Status of CE
• Acceptance of CE
• Novel Applications
• Challenges
• Progress in Standards and Groupware
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SW Engineering
• Process Maturity Model
• Collaborative Inspection, Verification, and Validation
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Health Care
• Automating flow of information in a hospital.
• 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
• Role-oriented interfaces
• Applications
• Coordination
•Resource Model•
Information Infrastructure
ARTEMIS
(CERC-ARPA)
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Design for Disposability
• 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
• 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
Streamline process of collection, transmission, storage and statisticalaggregation of injury incident data to discover causes and prevent injury.
DB1
DB2
DB3
State agency
Field Investigator
County clerk
NIOSH Manager/Scientist
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Earth Observing System
Users
UNIFIED DYNAMIC RESOURCE MODEL
DAAC
DAAC
DAAC
Archival
SCF
SCF
SCF
Computing Facility
EDOS
Data & Operations
NASA Science Network
EOS Collaboratory
Shared Workspace
• Collaboration Technology • Transparent Computing • Testbed for EOS Data Products • Information Dissemination
EOS Collaboratory
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• Elements of CE
• Status of CE
• Acceptance of CE
• Novel Applications
• Challenges
• Progress in Standards and Groupware
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Challenges
• 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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• 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.
• 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
• CE is being absorbed into the Enterprise processes.
• Technology support is advancing rapidly.
• Network infrastructure development is moving faster than anticipated.