product, based on the assumption that people who are given a sense of gratification and ownership over their work tend to work harder and design a more robust product, as opposed to an employee that is assigned a task with little say in the general process. Challenges associated with concurrent design Concurrent design comes with a series of challenges, such as implementation of early design reviews, dependency on efficient communication between engineers and teams, software compatibility, and opening up the design process. This design process usually requires that computer models (computer aided design, finite element analysis) are exchanged efficiently, something that can be difficult in practice. If such issues are not addressed properly, concurrent design may not work effectively. It is important to note that although the nature of some project activities imposes a degree of linearity—completion of software code, prototype development and testing, for example—organizing and managing project teams to facilitate concurrent design can still yield significant benefits that come from the improved sharing of information. Service providers exist that specialize in this field, not only training people how to perform concurrent design effectively, but also providing the tools to enhance the communication between the team members. Elements Cross-functional teams Cross-functional teams include people from different area of the workplace that are all involved in a particular process, including manufacturing, hardware and software design, marketing, and so forth. Concurrent product realization Doing several things at once, such as designing various subsystems simultaneously, is critical to reducing design time and is at the heart of concurrent engineering. Incremental information sharing Incremental information sharing helps minimize the chance that concurrent product realization will lead to surprises. "Incremental" meaning that as soon as new information becomes available, it is shared and integrated into the design. Cross-functional teams are important to the effective sharing of information in a timely fashion. Integrated project management Integrated project management ensures that someone is responsible for the entire project, and that responsibility is not handed-off once one aspect of the work is done. Definition Several definitions of concurrent engineering are in use. The first one is used by the Concurrent Design Facility (ESA): The second one is by Winner, et al., 1988: Concurrent vs sequential engineering Concurrent and Sequential engineering cover the same stages of design and manufacturing, however, the two approaches vary widely in terms of productivity, cost, development and efficiency. The 'Sequential Engineering vs Concurrent