Virtual world representation issues for supporting assembly and maintainability assessment tasks
pp. 209-219
in: Ray Paton, Irene Neilson (eds), Visual representations and interpretations, Berlin, Springer, 1999Abstract
The pressure on manufacturing companies to remain competitive in today's world markets has led many to adopt concurrent engineering in an attempt to reduce the lead time for new products and improve their quality. Concurrent engineering is a systematic approach to the integrated concurrent design of products and related processes, including manufacture and support. It encourages the manufacturing companies to consider all product life cycle issues such as manufacturability and maintainability during design. This reduces unforeseen problems creeping into the design as it progresses through its life cycle, consequently saving both time and money while improving product quality.