Concurrent Engineering A Case Study

involving University and Industry

Elsa Henriques1, Paulo Peas1, Arlindo Silva2, Ins Ribeiro1
1

Instituto Superior Tncico, IDMEC, Av Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon , Portugal

{elsa.h,ppecas,ines.ribeiro}@ist.utl.pt

Instituto Superior Tncico, ICEMS, Av Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon , Portugal

arlindo.silva@ist.utl.pt

Abstract
Time to market, competition and manufacturing costs are only some of the reasons why concurrent engineering is an
increasingly used methodology for product development. The present paper deals with a case study of universityindustry cooperation to develop an improved part for an automotive application, with three main concerns: economic,
performance and environmental. Four universities gathered to attack this problem with an automotive company,
joined by a technology research center. The very short time span of the project called for the application of
concurrent engineering project planning and execution. The brainstorming that ensued resulted in, among other
significant outcomes, a new methodology for materials selection. Also, the application of concurrent engineering
methods to university-industry collaboration was very successful, regardless of the usual different timings of industry
and university.
Keywords
Product development, concurrent engineering, materials selection, manufacturing cost

Introduction

Nowadays, any innovation process and particularly product development is a concurrent effort
involving engineers, business planners, marketing staff and environmental professionals
functioning as integrated teams [Cooper, 2001]. Leading firms are introducing new products
with high-perceived quality, forcing other companies to respond accordingly in order to maintain
their competitiveness. This dynamic flow of new products is achieved by adopting new product
development methods [Rouibah, Caskey, 2003]. Emerging in this context, Concurrent
Engineering (CE) is a process in which a number of specialists from different areas work
interactively to meet pre-determined targets [Hilmes, Schatz, 2004]. CE philosophy has been
discussed since the beginning of the twentieth century, but only in the past decades it has become
the main approach in product development, due to the fast development of science and
technology and to the increasing multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinary nature of current
engineering problems [Jian, Oriet, 2005]. Within a product development context the main
purposes for CE principles are the creation of products with shortened development process,
lower costs and higher quality [Xu, Li, Li, Tang, 2004]. Many studies have been developed in
this area; some are focused on information exchange between expertise areas [Yassine,
Sreenivas, Zhu, 2006; Wognum, Bondarouk, 2003; Farinha, Gonalves, Garo, 2003], some
explore leadership and team management strategies [Lin, Chai, Wong, Brombacher, 2007; Stach,
Pfennig, 2004] and others focus on applications and case studies involving concurrent
engineering applied to product development [McBeth, Tennant, Neailey, 2005; Loh, 2005;
Xiuchun, Ning, 2005]. Nevertheless, and whatever their approach is, all of them agree that the
basic principles of CE rely on concurrent work-flow, cross-functional work teams and early
involvement of constituencies, whose competences will be required or will be disturbed at some
point along the product development process.

The concurrent work-flow, based on the parallelism of activities, is stimulated by an early release
of information [Koufteros, Vonderembse, Doll, 2001]. If information and partial outcomes from
on-going activities are released early, engineers can begin working on different phases of the
problem while final designs are still evolving. Time-consuming rework is also avoided because
the detection of design nonconformities is promoted.
Cross functional work-teams appear in CE as a logical answer to overcome barriers to
communication and information sharing particularly when decision processes cut across the
distinctive competences and functional authority [Wang, Wu, Zhou, Yan, 1996].
Finally the early involvement of various constituents in the development process provides an
avenue for various interest groups to express their concerns and to provide their input early into
the process. For example, getting in manufacturing engineers in preliminary product
development phases brings manufacturability issues into light, and contributes to the reduction of
lead time from design conception to delivery of the product.

Project goals and objectives

Although CE practice has mainly been applied to product and process development activities
[Chen, Hsiao, 1997], its basic principles can be extended to cooperative research environments,
involving universities and other research institutes together with industrial companies with or
without formal R&TD departments. In fact, there is a major benefit from the integration of CE
principles to increase interaction between different research groups in university and industry. As
in any cooperative environment, project goals definition is important, thereby establishing the
project teams. Projects involving university and industrial professionals are often originated in
teams with different objectives. While university professionals work with the main purpose of
creating scientific results, industrials seek to obtain the best results in terms of production. As
teams have different purposes, these purposes have to be adjusted to the global aim of the
project, thereby reaching industrial results as well as scientific work in the end of the project. As
a result, organization and leadership of this type of teams is a challenging task [Allen, 2001], as a
well coordinated effort to involve many areas into interdisciplinary teams has a great importance
to the project duration and success.
The objective of this project was to bring together one company, one technology center and three
universities to study the application of three different material types in the manufacturing of an
automobile fender already in production.
Automakers have already demonstrated fender designs in several different materials, including
steel, light metals, fiber reinforced composites, and plastics. Each of these materials choices must
satisfy a set of structural requirements: the fender must be strong and stiff, exceed vibration
standards, and be able to withstand the high temperatures of the paint shop and low temperatures
of winter. A successful alternative fender design must also fit current manufacturing needs and
standards, such as the package space for the part on the vehicle and the attachment points to the
vehicle body. Furthermore, the decision as a whole is extremely cost driven, implying that each
technical component cannot be evaluated without considering its economic impact. Yet the
incentives to find a successful lightweight fender solution are real, especially in an environment
of rising fuel costs and increasing emphasis on the environmental impact of motor vehicle
designs.
The study would focus in comparing different material alternatives in producing the fender,
including investigation of structural performance, process based cost modelling and
environmental analysis. Each university was chosen because of its expertise in metals (Instituto
Superior Tcnico, IST), polymers (Universidade do Minho), composites (Faculdade de
Engenharia da Universidade do Porto) and process-based cost modelling (Massachusetts Institute
of Technology). CEIIA (Centro de Engenharia e Inovao par a Industria Automvel) was

brought in as technology centre and as liaison with the company (AutoEuropa). Hence, the
management was based on CE practices, coordinating teams and planning the project in advance.

Work methodology and timetable

The first step was to establish the project scope and goals. Goals validation was needed,
especially with industrials, as the project targets were not the same within partners. While the
research team goal was to obtain scientific results from the study with possible use in education,
the industry purpose was to reach the best production results in terms of economic outcome. The
goals were different between partners but were not conflicting, so this issue was not critical. Note
that at first, some of the research team specific goals were not fully understood by the industry
team. Yet, they were considered to be potentially important. The organization and leadership of
these project teams revealed to be a demanding task, as subgroups existed within each university
team. Each subgroup had a leader, which had to solicit cooperation from other subgroups during
the project.
Project deadlines were defined, planning the tasks and goals in order to integrate MSc Theses.
This incorporation was possible by the perception of the project length. Project planning was
developed using CE principles, thereby seeking to promote cooperation not only between
university groups, but also between university and industry. Team cooperation was intended to
transform the project into a more agile, dynamic process.
As the research teams had a wider scope, that is, its aims went beyond the project punctual
results, modular and parameterised models were developed. These models allow comparisons
and sensitivity analysis to different situations, being therefore possible to spread out the
particular case study and acquire systemic knowledge about the conducted analysis. Another
important purpose for these models was the project context of concurrent engineering, where
new or different data and results can appear and have to be rapidly integrated.
Figure 1 shows the timetable of the project, with a total duration of six months. There is a clear
difference between conventional design project and concurrent project in terms of parallel
activities, as parallelism is intimately associated to concurrent engineering. Therefore, it is
necessary to plan carefully for network activities [Haberle, Burke, Graves, 2000]. Planning the
project in advance is a crucial part in CE, as it becomes possible to coordinate teams with the
purpose of concluding the project in the shortest time. The success of CE largely depends on the
ability of sharing timely information among cross-functional teams [Yassine, Braha, 2003]. To
achieve this purpose, meetings were planned every other week between university teams, and
every week within each university team of groups. These meetings were held throughout the
project along with some meetings between university and industry. These meetings proved to be
very useful, as not only information exchange was required for the project development, but also
some innovative ideas were achieved by the brainstorm meetings involving professionals with
different expertise.

Project description, methods and outcomes

The present project aimed to select a material for an automobile fender, considering not only the
materials technical performance, but also costs and environmental impacts.
The project scope was defined between the industry and university, considering the industry
requirements and design limitations. In the particular case of the Instituto Superior Tecnico
project team, in charge of studying metallic alternatives, the team included a design group,
responsible for the fender design specifications, a manufacture group, in charge of the
manufacture process analysis, a materials group for the pre-selection and analysis of possible
materials, an economics group for the study of the material alternatives costs and an environment
group for the estimation of the options on the environmental impacts. The groups tasks were not

independent and communication between them was crucial for finalising the project in time,
which had six months duration.

Project Goals
Industry
Requirements
Manufacture Information
Exchange

Project Scope & Design Phase

Meetings for Tasks Assignment

List of Possible Materials
Technical Analysis to Current Fender
Technical Baseline
Product Design Specifications for other
Materials

Technical Performance of the

Possible Materials

Material Selecion
based on
Production Cost

Manufacture Processes Conditions

Manufacture Processes Analysis

Production Costs
Fender Life Cycle

Material Selecion
based on Life Cycle
Engineering

Life Cycle Cost

Life Cycle
Engineering

Life Cycle Assessment

Weekly Meetings Within University to Exchange Information

Time

Figure 1 Project timetable, with a total duration of six months for the Instituto Superior Tcnico team.

After defining the projects scope, several requirements and constraints were imposed by the
automotive company, in particular in fender design. As the automobile already exists in the
market, the actual fender was analysed in order to develop a technical baseline for the study, as
fenders using other materials had to perform similarly in terms of response to external loads. A
list of material candidates was proposed and based on the current fender technical baseline, the
design team determined other fender designs using the material candidates. In the particular case
of the IST team, different fender designs only differ on the fender thickness, because all he
materials envisioned were metallic. The other university teams had to come up with very
different designs, because composites and polymers have a radically different mechanical
behaviour.
With the fender designs for the other metallic materials, the manufacture group studied the
production process, defining among others the production time, required machines and tools and
necessary raw material. Manufacture optimizations were developed at this point, in particular a
reduction of production scrap.
Information from the manufacture group and industry allowed the economics group to estimate
production costs for the candidate materials. Materials selection based only on production costs,
therefore supported by the automotive company, could be made at this point. However, this
project aimed to include also technical and environmental considerations to materials selection.
In order to achieve this, the materials group evaluated materials only considering their
mechanical and chemical properties and the environment group developed a life cycle approach
using a Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) methodology, in cooperation with the economics and

materials groups. LCE can be defined as a decision-making methodology that considers

performance, environmental, and cost dimensions throughout the duration of a product, guiding
design engineers towards informed decisions [Wanyama, Ertas, Zhang, Ekwaro-Osire, 2003;
Betz, Schuckert, Herrmann, 1998]. LCE includes Life Cycle Assessment (LCA - developed by
the environment group) and Life Cycle Cost (LCC developed by the economics group)
methodologies, and a technical evaluation of the materials (materials group). This evaluation
based on life cycle approaches (LCC and LCA) and on material properties allows materials
selection under these three dimensions (economical, environmental and technical). Industry plays
an important role at this point, as the importance to give to each dimension refers to the company
strategy.
The present project was therefore a combination of conventional tools for material selection, life
cycle perspective methodologies and the principles of CE for the team management. Figure 2
shows a simplified diagram of the project development within the Instituto Superior Tecnico
team.
Company & University Team
Company requirements
(design constraints)

Project Goals
Technical Analysis
to current fender

List of possible
materials

Technical
Baseline
Product Design Specifications
(for different material alternatives)

Manufacture Processes Conditions

(for different material alternatives)
Optimization
Manufacture Processes Analysis
Production Costs

Design Group

Material Selection based

on Production Costs

Product
Life Cycle

LCC

LCA

Materials
Technical
Performance

Manufacture Group
Materials Group

Life Cycle Engineering

Economics Group
Environment Group

Material Selection based on Economical,

Technical and Environmental analysis

Figure 2 Project diagram within the Instituto Superior Tecnico team

Some project results

A very brief description of the project results is presented here [Roth, Camanho, Silva, Viana,
2008]. These results will focus mainly on the work performed by the Instituto Superior Tcnico
team on metallic materials, and some final results comparing all the material solutions from all
the university teams. The first step of the project was the technical analysis of the fender. Since
no standards are available for this part, an experimental and numerical structural analysis was
performed on the current fender, to define a set of baseline design parameters for future designs
to meet or exceed. Static and vibration tests were performed to extract strength, stiffness and
natural frequencies of the existing fender. Figure 3 shows some of the results.
The methodology used lead to the creation of a triangular chart that can ultimately plot technical
performance, environmental impact and economic performance as competing criteria for the

selection of a particular material to the given application [Silva, Henriques, 2008; Ribeiro, I,
Peas, P., Silva, A., Henriques, E., 2008]. Figure 4 shows an example of this type of plot for
competing metallic materials.

Dimension Weight

DOCOL 1000DP

Tech. Eval.

Econ. Eval.

10

90

40

50

10

50

20

30

ce
an %
rm
0
rfo % 3
Pe
40
al
%
nic
50
ch
%
Te
60

%
70

20

%
80

En
vir
on
70
me
%
nta
60
lP
%
erf
50
orm
%
40
an
%
ce
30

%
90

10
%

Figure 3 Experimental setup and loading and acquisition points of dynamic data, on the left, and FEM
mesh with loading and constraints and static analysis results on the right.

90

20%

30% 40%

50%

60%

HX220YD+
z100MCO

%
10

%
20

80
%

DOCOL 600DP
10%

Envir. Eval.

70% 80%

90%

Economical Performance

Figure 4 Triangular plot with the best metallic material for the different criteria.

In the end, the result was a plot of different materials (metallic and non-metallic) with the cost of
a fender for different production volumes. Figure 5 shows the plot obtained. This plot includes
all the manufacturing costs. It can be seen that, with the assumptions made, there is a significant
difference in manufacturing cost for the different material types studied, and this cost varies
substantially with production volume.

Figure 5 Manufacturing cost varying with production volume, for the different materials considered.

Conclusions

This project was possible because of the involvement of the four universities with expertise in
different areas of knowledge, and a company with real interest in the Project outcome. It shows
that, when the objectives are well defined from the beginning and the outcome will have a
significant impact, it is possible to have industry and university working together in a very short
time span, using concurrent engineering methods of product development.
The project is a combination of conventional approaches for material selection (the ones
currently used by the industry) and advanced methodologies based on life cycle perspectives
designed in order to allow a detailed evaluation of the different impacts on technical, economical
and environmental performance of the final product. The complexity and short time frame of the
project and the need to make compatible different objectives of the partners involved called for
the application of CE principles. The outcome, an integrated framework to support materials
selection, its application to an industrial case and the transfer of knowledge between academia
and industry in the field of global comparisons of materials, relied on concurrent work-flow,
cross-functional work teams and early involvement of constituencies affected by the results.
Also, the application of concurrent engineering methods to university-industry collaboration was
very successful. Traditionally, there is a notion that university research occurs in a time span that
is incompatible with industry time constraints. This project proves otherwise. As long as there is
a clear understanding of the main expectations of all the partners involved, and the different
goals are compatible within the expected timeframe, university and industry can collaborate
fruitfully.
Acknowledgement
This work has been partly funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.
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