Computers as Components, 2nd Edition

444 CHAPTER 9 System Design Techniques

■ Early and continual supplier involvement helps make the best use of

suppliers’ capabilities.

■ Early and continual customer focus helps ensure that the product best

meets customers’ needs.

Example 9.1 describes the experiences of a telephone system design organiza-

tion with concurrent engineering.

Example 9.1

Concurrent engineering applied to telephone systems

A group at AT&T applied concurrent engineering to the design of PBXs (telephone switching

systems) [Gat94]. The company had a large existing organization and methodology for design-

ing PBXs; their goal was to re-engineer their process to reduce design