Is concurrent engineering always a sensible proposition?

Currently in the literature it is apparent that there exists a strong drive towards the employment of concurrent engineering as opposed to the serial progression of products through phases. In many cases there is much advantage to be gained from the early involvement of downstream activities such as the involvement of manufacturing in the early phases of engineering. This is the basis of the entire movement towards design for manufacturability. This note is a cautionary one which shows that the precise models, though rudimentarily simple, of the development process and its probabilities must be considered before statements can be made on the efficiency of one variety of engineering process over another; in other words, caveat emptor. Specifically, the authors show how this happens in a realistic environment and then propose a better alternative configuration that is a hybrid between serial and concurrent product design.<
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