Applications of concurrent engineering

Over a decade ago, design-to-test entered the electronics industry as an expected savior for reducing test development costs and schedules. While conceptually simple, many companies experienced problems using such a simple approach. Today, concurrent engineering and integrated product development (CE/IPD) are the new industry buzz words. CE/IPD do not represent a single idea or methodology; rather they encompass several methodologies, many of which have been around for a number of years. This paper presents the CE/IPD methodologies used by two companies to improve product and test quality and reduce product development time. While the focus of the CE/IPD effort in each case was in the design and test area, each company used a different combination of methodologies to achieve their goals