Development of a tool for benchmarking for concurrent engineering

Benchmarking for concurrent engineering is a method to compare working methods with other companies, with the goal of enhancing the performance of the product development process The Readiness Assessment for Concurrent Engineering (RACE) is used to describe the product development process Strengths and weaknesses of the process are thus identified The characteristic "Teams in the Organization" is chosen to be improved Benchmarking this characteristic seems to yeld the best results Companies that are willing to cooperate in this bench marking effort are identified and approached by a benchmarking team Information exchange on a particular characteristic leads to an improve ment drive for the particular company, because it shows a performance gap and a way to bridge it