System Integration Techniques of Sharing and Collaboration among Work-groups, Computers and Processes

Systems Engineering (SE) and Concurrent Engineering (CE) implies sharing of information, data, process and knowledge 20] across different levels in an enterprise. Division of work into classes and then to the work-groups or to the concurrent sub-teams is one form of sharing large organizations like Ford Motor and General Motors have used 29]. Other forms of sharing are governed by the state of computer communications, workstation and database technologies 9]. For accomplishing the needed collaboration (and to facilitate concurrent engineering), several concepts and models for work-group computing were tried at Delphi Divisional units of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and General Motors. Based on such experiences, the paper describes Systems Engineering and CE techniques for sharing information in a concurrent engineering organization, which has been found most effective for collaborating knowledge among a set of multidisciplinary work-groups, array of computers and processes.