Over the last decades, one of the steadiest challenges for manufacturing companies is the need for reduction of time-to-market and for enhancement of the efficiency of their product engineering process (PEP). Triggering factors are changing customer demands, shorter technology cycles that enforce product changes and a noticeable market saturation. Hence, companies need to increase the efficiency of the PEP despite considerable improvements in this field such as concepts of simultaneous engineering and digital factory. Today, the three main phases of the PEP (product development (PD), manufacturing system planning (MSP) and manufacturing) are still performed sequentially. Due to already existing improvements in parallelizing steps of the PEP, efforts for further improvements should concentrate on the interface between MSP and PD. Traditionally, MSP starts after PD is completed. Thus, on one side, information regarding the product's manufacturing is withheld from product developers. As a result, decision making assistance for selection between design alternatives is not available. On the other side, MSP is not able to influence the product design. This leads to more expensive or not manufacturable products. This paper presents an innovative approach for an integrated MSP based on fuzzy information from early phases of PD. It solely uses information from specification phase and conceptual design phase of PD within the first steps of MSP. The approach aims at noticeable improvements e. g. more frequent feedback loops, reduction of expensive correction loops after product development, and a smooth manufacturing ramp-up. The paper summarizes the theoretical foundations for PD and MSP, highlights the need for research, and outlines further steps for the concept development. Additionally, early phases of PD and MSP are described and investigated in more detail with regard to links between the two domains. The basis for the development of a concept is given which aims at an early start of MSP and more efficiency within the PEP.
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