Managing product development information in small companies

Concurrent engineering has had a significant impact on the quality and development cycle of products in large corporations; however, research has shown that small companies rarely practice concurrent engineering. The authors have developed a concurrent engineering methodology specifically for the needs of small companies. There are three components to this methodology: a road map that details the steps undertaken to design a product from concept through production; a method to tailor the development steps based on project characteristics; and defined outputs for each of the development steps. An output is the product or result of a task. This paper concentrates on the outputs of their concurrent engineering methodology. They define a consistent structure for all outputs, along with a process to create new ones. The outputs allow current teams to track their progress and to communicate more effectively, white future teams benefit from past experiences stored in the outputs.