并行制造过程工程（CMPE）一词引起了人们对集成许多制造工程活动的真正需求的关注，这些活动是评估、设计、记录过程规范和创建可编程设备指令所必需的。过去的实践通常将这些作为一系列独立的步骤来执行，通常由不同的专业职位来执行。制造业组织的新趋势是，这些以前独立的专业职位越来越广泛，对整个过程工程的责任也越来越全面。 为了让制造工程师成功地参与并行工程，他们不仅必须与设计工程活动并行工作，还必须压缩和组合他们自己的活动。

THE TERM CONCURRENT MANUFACTURING PROCESS ENGINEERING (CMPE) DRAWS ATTENTION TO THE REAL NEED TO INTEGRATE THE MANY MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES NECESSARY TO ESTIMATE, ENGINEER, DOCUMENT PROCESS SPECIFICATIONS, AND CREATE PROGRAMMABLE DEVICE INSTRUCTIONS. PAST PRACTICES HAVE OFTEN PERFORMED THESE AS A SEQUENTIAL SERIES OF SEPARATE STEPS, OFTEN PERFORMED BY DIFFERENT SPECIALIZED POSITIONS. THE NEW TREND IN MANUFACTURING ORGANIZATIONS IS THAT THESE PREVIOUSLY SEPARATE SPECIALIZED POSITIONS ARE BECOMING BROADER WITH MORE COMPLETE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE OVERALL PROCESS ENGINEERING. IN ORDER FOR MANUFACTURING ENGINEERS TO SUCCESSFULLY PARTICIPATE IN CONCURRENT ENGINEERING THEY MUST NOT ONLY WORK IN PARALLEL WITH DESIGN ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES BUT ALSO COMPRESS AND COMBINE THEIR OWN ACTIVITIES.