Concurrent commercialization

This paper addresses several issues confronting the laser electro-optics community and explores ways for changing them. One of the issues concern the demand for greater financial support to move the photonics field forward. Another issue deals with wanting to have a successful career in the current environment, where most professional societies have not evolved beyond what is intended to further technical expertise. The author proposes "concurrent engineering," which is a proven concept used by well-managed companies to streamline their new product development efforts. The concept essentially aims to gain speed and efficiency by teaming people in R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and business development early in the product development cycle to have greater clarity of what needs to be done to get a product successfully introduced.