The design and manufacture of aircraft engines are complex. In this project, the concurrent engineering methodology will be used as a team-building tool for the design and manufacture of some aircraft engine parts by precision investment casting. The concepts of design and manufacturing are integrated as a total system involving the concurrent (simultaneous) application of such state-of-the-art techniques as computer integrated manufacturing (CIM); total quality control (TQC) using Taguchi methods and quality function deployment (QDF); and just-in-time (JIT) production techniques. The design/manufacturing total system concept shows that cost and quality do not lie at the opposite spectrum of the production enterprise. The design and manufacturing operation of aircraft engines, though complex, could be performed at high- quality and at low-cost using the total system concept derived from concurrent engineering as a team-building tool. In this research project, some major components of an aircraft engine are to be manufactured through the application of the design/manufacturing total system methodology by precision investment casting.
