Team players: cross-functional engineering teams bring product designs to market fast, frugally, and right the first time.(includes related articles on product development at Texas Instruments, and on

Industry Week, July, 1996 by Taninecz, George

00-00-0000 Cross-functional engineering teams bring product designs to market fast, frugally, and right their first time.

TEAMING ENGINEERS IS becoming a way of business life for corporations aspiring to faster newproduct development cycles and lower costs associated with moving designs through manufacturing processes and into the hands of customers. No longer are manufacturers able or willing to isolate engineers into technical, cerebral cubicles. Downsized and flattened corporations require cross-functional teams to facilitate product- development improvements and demand that all employees, particularly engineers, expand and extend their skill sets across the enterprise.

"When you get into the teaming aspect of this, what you're really after is to...