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Cha p te r

FIGURE 5.3 Engineering and research.

communicate its findings to three other functional areas—product
development, process development, and facilities engineering.
5.3.2.1 Product Development
In today’s increasingly competitive manufacturing markets, creation
of new material and production technologies is essential for the suc-
cessful development of products. The product development area uses
these materials and production technologies to design, model, simu-
late, and analyze new products.
Product development activities include preparing product speci-
fications and processing requirements, drawings, materials or parts
lists, and bills of material for new products or engineering changes.
In this area, laboratory analysis tools, computer-aided design/
computer-aided engineering (CAD/CAE) tools, and group technol-
ogy (GT) applications are helping to reduce product development
time, increase productivity, and improve product quality.
Product development comes from marketing, research, and plant
operations. Its output—product specifications, manufacturing con-
trol requirements, drawings, text, and messages—is directed to pro-
cess development and engineering release control.