Subject: INDUSTRY BEST PRACTICES?
Dear Colleagues:
I have pleasure informing you about the availability of a TEXTBOOK that covers many of the INDUSTRY "BEST PRACTICES" for experienced engineers that were found relevant by an independent committee on ASME/NSF Product Realization Process (PRP) Project. If you didn't know, the findings of the Industry Task Force Report were presented & released at the ASME Annual Congress'95 in San Francisco, November 13, 1995.
Though, the two (the "Concurrent Engineering Fundamentals" book and the "ASME/NSF Survey Industry Task Report") were independent undertakings, I was surprised to know that many of the identified Industry best practices were not taught in some of the American University/College Design curriculum or courses. I was equally surprised to know that many of those identified best practices coincidentally were part of the "CE Fundamentals" Book, mentioned earlier. I was not a party to this (ASME/NSF study) and I did not know about it until the day of the presentation.
The good news -- there is a book that can be used to teach those best practices. Don't take my words for it. Please do your own independent evaluation.
Thank you and best wishes for the holiday season,
Biren Prasad EDS/General Motors __________________________________________________________________________
BOOK TITLE/SUBTITLE Concurrent Engineering Fundamentals: Integrated Product and Process Organization by Biren Prasad Published by: Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 Volume I: 1996, 502 pp., ISBN # 0-13-147463-4 (Just Published) Volume 2: 1996, 500 pp., ISBN # 0-13-396496-0 (Due Spring 1996)
The critically important elements of product and process organization comprise identifying and evaluating product development practices, eliminating wastes and rework, decomposing tasks, adding product values, and integrating the product, process and organization (PPO) into a taxonomic system of product realization. Concurrent Engineering Fundamentals gives an integrated view of this organization, covering management's organizational and cultural concerns, as well as the methodological fields of taxonomy, including philosophical, conceptual and virtual perspectives.
The book, which largely contains fundamental ideas, is organized into nine chapters. The book begins by discussing the emerging concept of a virtual enterprise, breaking down organizational boundaries and taking a holistic view of life-cycle management. It then lays down a set of modern manufacturing invariant, which focuses on 4Ms (models, metrics, measures and methodology) for PPO as well as model enactment based on cognition to represent human behaviors. Finally, the book describes an integrated taxonomic constructs for product realization from its inception to disposal.
Concurrent Engineering Fundamentals presents the key concepts of Concurrent Engineering that is revolutionizing the manufacturing industry. It also describes the performance indicators to meeting the world class competitiveness challenges that industries are facing today. With Concurrent Engineering: Fundamentals, you will learn proven CE techniques to bring new products to market faster. The book features process reengineering to help you discover your company's strengths and weaknesses, information modeling to capture the invariant of CE environments and system engineering to describe techniques of how to achieve gold successes. You will learn how to make quantum improvements in key PPO categories such as productivity, quality, cost effectiveness, design for X-ability, responsiveness, customer satisfaction, etc.
Concurrent Engineering Fundamentals is fully illustrated and each chapter includes test problems and suggestions for additional readings. Professors and students will find this book quite appropriate for teaching capstone courses in design education curriculum. The book is also beneficial to practicing engineers in industries as well as executives managing CE projects. This is an excellent introduction to researchers interested in advancing the key CE ideas. The book will be of particular interest to all who are interested in understanding the process of CE and determining its impact on quality, cycle-time, resource allocations and teamwork.
If you would like to get a copy of the Table of Contents, the CE Fundamentals textbook, or to discuss technical details concerning Concurrent Engineering, please direct your inquiries or Email your request to me or visit Prentice Hall's web site: http://www.prenhall.com
Dr. Biren Prasad CERA Institute Electronic Data Systems, P.O. Box 250254 West Bloomfield, MI 48325-0254 Tel: (810) 696-5487: Fax: (810) 661-8333 Email: <bprasad@cmsa.gmr.com>
BIREN PRASAD, PH.D. CONCURRENT ENGINEERING Phone Number: (810) 696-5487 Fax Number (810) 661-8333; Email: bprasad@cmsa.gmr.com cc: SMTP --AHIPC2S Biren Prasad