Implementing concurrent engineering

This article addresses the conditions necessary for firms to implement concurrent engineering successfully. Although there has been considerable interest in concurrent engineering since the late 1980s, and many books and articles have been published on this approach to product innovation, there is still some confusion about the concept, and the issues associated with its successful implementation remain largely unresearched. This article seeks to add to the body of knowledge in these areas by drawing on recent Australian surveys and on the findings of four case studies of the introduction of concurrent engineering in Australian fil ms. It is argued that concurrent engineering research may be usefully extended by adopting a "sociotechnical configuration" approach to further extend the study of implementation practices. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.