ABSTRACT
Changing from a sequential design organization to a concurrent organization requires changes in organizational structure, personnel management, and business practices. Organizations must change the way they think about their product and process development approaches, employee interactions, and customer and supplier relationships. A successful implementation of concurrent engineering involves rethinking how processes were executed in the past, and moving toward employee empowerment and open communication between all organizations. All these changes require a modification in the organization’s culture that can only be achieved with the support and commitment of senior management. In this chapter, we will look at organizational structures and how they can contribute to the success of concurrent engineering, teams and the role they play in concurrent engineering, and what barriers the company may face as they embrace these changes.
