Practical applications of concurrent engineering for systems integration

The authors focus on how a task force at IBM Federal Sector Division at Owego, NY addressed the practice of concurrent engineering (CE), and the approach taken to strengthen concurrent engineering in the systems integration business. A quality improvement team (QIT) decided to produce a practically oriented CE plan. Two important objectives were established for the plan. First, it must define practical implementations of CE in the form of a checklist with each implementation tied to one or more resultant benefit. Secondly, it must allow the project using the plan to determine, via a set of measurements, if CE was successfully applied. The practical applications derived by the Owego QIT task force represent one attempt of applying a set of generic, practical CE criteria that is virtually program independent. The plan has been developed so that it can be tailored for a particular program if required. The key to implementation is an emphasis on the working relationships among people