An integrated product and process development methodology: Concept formulation

Life cycle engineering, or integrated product and process development (IPPD), is a new trend of research and application in industry and academia. In our previous work, a generic framework was proposed to provide a means for an integrated consideration of the performance optimization issues in a product's lifetime. Based on this generic framework, this paper proposes and presents an integrated product and process development methodology. Important concepts of the methodology are introduced, and an application procedure is provided to illustrate the systematic application of the methodology to real product and process development. Finally, we provide a brief report of our application of the methodology to personal computer development.