Design and Manufacturing' figure shows sequential engineering on the left and concurrent design and manufacturing on the right. As seen in the figure, sequential engineering begins with customer requirements and then progresses to design, implementation, verification and maintenance. The approach for sequential engineering results in large amounts of time devoted to product development. Due to large amounts of time allocated towards all stages of product development, sequential engineering is associated with high cost and is less efficient as products can not be made quickly. Concurrent engineering, on the other hand, allows for all stages of product development to occur essentially at the same time. As seen in the 'Sequential Engineering vs Concurrent Design and Manufacturing' figure, initial planning is the only requirement before the process can occur including planning design, implementation, testing and evaluation. The concurrent design and manufacturing approach allows for shortening of product development time, higher efficiency in developing and producing parts earlier and lower production costs. Concurrent and Sequential Engineering may also be compared using a relay race analogy. Sequential engineering is compared to the standard approach of running a relay race, where each runner must run a set distance and then pass the baton to the next runner and so on until the race is completed. Concurrent engineering is compared to running a relay race where two runners will run at the same time during certain points of the race. In the analogy, each runner will cover the same set distance as the sequential approach but the time to complete the race using the concurrent approach is significantly less. When thinking of the various runners in the relay race as stages in product development, the correlation between the two approaches in the relay race to the same approaches in engineering is vastly similar. Although there are more complex and numerous processes involved in product development, the concept that the analogy provides is enough to understand the benefits that come with concurrent design and manufacturing. Business benefits Using concurrent engineering, businesses can cut down on the time it takes to go from idea to product. The time savings come from designing with all the steps of the process in mind, eliminating any potential changes that have to be made to a design after a part has gone all the way to production before realizing that it is difficult or impossible to machine. Reducing or eliminating these extra