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Building better supply side relationships in order to bring products to market faster
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Introduction:
In literature the systematic approach to the integrated, synchronised design of products and their related processes, including manufacturing and support is known as Concurrent engineering. Concurrent engineering as an approach is intended to cause the developer of goods and services from the outsets to consider all elements of the product life cycle, from the products’ introduction to its inevitable decline (Winner, et al., 1988).
Concurrent engineering (CE) as a concept has been made more aware in the more recent decades in terms of business practice and in literature. It is widely understood in many industries, from automotive, and material construction, as a common term for developing new products in a cross functionally integrated manner primarily through the use of multifunctional teams in the case of this literature with suppliers and overlapping previously existing sequential activities (Pawar. et al., 2002). Immediately visible results of successful CE implementation are improved quality, reduced time to market and reduced life cycle. Over the recent years, case studies documenting the successes and failures of CE have arisen, many highlight the importance of reduced time to market and the role of the purchasing department in doing so. In the previous literature, the use of CE in its early years benefitted companies in the automotive and aerospace industries, hence for this research the case of Rolls-Royce and project P2001 will be used as an example for the different elements of CE (Backhouse and Brookes, 1996).
The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the elements of CE in reference to building supply-side relationship; primarily product introduction and product development. The research will also demonstrate the role of purchasing and how