Concurrent Engineering for Composites

Faced with increasing global competitiveness, the issues of high costs, product robustness, and long lead times associated with product development are emerging in forefront of the problems facing American industry. It is increasingly clear that a significant (70–80%) percentage of system life cycle costs are committed during the phase of concept development and this is of special significance in composites were design decisions are highly coupled. The continued growth of composites is thus dependant on both development of low–cost fabrication technologies and adoption of the philosophy of concurrent engineering. It is essential that the early decisions are made based on the integration of all phases of product development. In this paper we discuss the need for concurrent engineering methodology for composites, and present framework for such an approach.