| Contract manufacturer | An organization that performs manufacturing and/or purchasing needed to produce a product or device not for itself, but as a service to another firm.
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| Concurrent engineering | Emphasizes cross-functional integration and concurrent development of a product and its associated processes.
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| Core competency | The one thing that a firm can do better than its competitors. The goal is to have a core competency that yields a long-term competitive advantage to the company.
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| Ecodesign | The incorporation of environmental considerations into the design and development of products or services. These concerns relate to the entire life cycle including materials, manufacturing, distribution, and the eventual disposal of waste.
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| House of quality | A matrix that helps a product design team translate customer requirements into operating and engineering goals.
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| Quality function deployment (QFD) | A process that helps a company determine the product characteristics important to the consumer and to evaluate its own product in relation to others.
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| Value analysis/value engineering (VA/VE) | Analysis with the purpose of simplifying products and processes by achieving equivalent or better performance at a lower cost.
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