ABSTRACT
Concurrent engineering is the key to exploiting the full talents of a company’s manufacturing engineers. Product designers are apt to return from meetings with manufacturing engineers talking of “frustrated designers” trying to change the design. Contrast that with the situation involving a task force in which the foundry specialist on the team and the manufacturing engineer, unhappy with the prospects of the difficult casting and complex machine, request a rethink on the design. Manufacturing engineers should be in the team from the original concept stage, gaining data on customers’ requirements with other team members and discussing the direction in which the concept should go. More dramatic was the improvement made by General Motors at its Adam Opel subsidiary in the design of a rear suspension arm. Chrysler uses simulation of its processes to assist in optimizing design and plant, and uses assembly variation analysis to simulate the effects of tolerance stack-up on the design.
