This book of proceedings contains papers peer reviewed accepted for the 23rd ISPE Inc. International Conference on Transdisciplinary (formerly: Concurrent) Engineering, held at the Federal University of Technology, Parana, Curitiba, Brazil, October 3–7, 2016. This is the fourth issue of the newly introduced series “Advances in Transdisciplinary Engineering” which publishes the proceedings of the TE (formerly: CE) conference series and accompanied events. The TE/CE conference series is organized annually by the International Society of Productivity Enhancement (ISPE, Inc.) and constitutes an important forum for international scientific exchange on concurrent engineering and collaborative enterprises. These international conferences attract a significant number of researchers, industry experts and students, as well as government representatives, who are interested in the recent advances in concurrent engineering research, advancements and applications.

Developed in the 80's, the CE approach is based on the concept that different phases of a product life cycle should be conducted concurrently and initiated as early as possible within the Product Creation Process (PCP), including the implications of this approach within the extended enterprise and networks. The main goal of CE is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the PCP and to reduce errors in the later phases, as well as to incorporate considerations for the full lifecycle and through-life operations. In the past decades, CE has become the substantive basic methodology in many industries (e.g., automotive, aerospace, machinery, shipbuilding, consumer goods, process industry, environmental engineering) and is also adopted in the development of new services and service support.

The initial basic CE concepts have matured and have become the foundations of many new ideas, methodologies, initiatives, approaches and tools. Generally, the current CE focus concentrates on enterprise collaboration and its many different elements; from integrating people and processes to very specific complete multi/inter/transdisciplinary solutions. Current research on CE is driven again by many factors like increased customer demands, globalization, (international) collaboration and environmental strategies. The successful application of CE in the past opens also the perspective for future applications like overcoming natural catastrophes, sustainable mobility concepts with electrical vehicles, and intensive, integrated, data processing. Due to the increasing importance of transdisciplinarity, the board of ISPE Inc. has decided to rename the conference series in “Transdisciplinary Engineering”.

The TE2016 Organizing Committee has identified 31 thematic areas within CE and launched a Call For Papers accordingly, with resulting submissions submitted from all continents of the world. The conference is entitled: “Transdisciplinary Engineering: Crossing Boundaries”. This title reflects the variety of processes and methods which influences the modern product creation. Finally, the submissions as well as invited talks were collated into 17 streams led by outstanding researchers and practitioners.

The Proceedings contains 108 peer-reviewed papers by authors from 20 countries and one invited keynote paper. These papers range from the theoretical, conceptual to strongly pragmatic addressing industrial best practice. The involvement of more than 14 companies from many industries in the presented papers gives additional importance to this conference.

This book on ‘Transdisciplinary Engineering: Crossing Boundaries’ is directed at three constituencies: researchers, design practitioners, and educators. Researchers will benefit from the latest research results and knowledge of product creation processes and related methodologies. Engineering professionals and practitioners will learn from the current state of the art in concurrent engineering practice, new approaches, methods, tools and their applications. The educators in the CE community gather the latest advances and methodologies for dissemination in engineering curricula, while the community also encourages young educators to bring new ideas into the field.

The proceedings are subdivided into several parts, reflecting the themes addressed in the conference programme:

Part 1 of the Proceedings comprises the keynotes.

Part 2 is entitled Concurrent Engineering and Knowledge Exchange and contains papers on research in Concurrent Engineering and the exchange of knowledge in CE in research and practice.

Part 3 outlines the importance of Design Tools and Methods within CE. It contains several methods for managing product data and supporting the product development process.

Part 4, Engineering for Sustainability, addresses a variety of approaches to support disassembly and recycling and estimating the impact for sustainable manufacturing.

Part 5 contains papers in the theme Systems Engineering with system approaches in various application areas.

Part 6 focuses on Multi-disciplinary Product Management with an emphasis on information and project management.

Part 7 contains contributions on Collaborative Design and Engineering with methodologies for enhancing the product development process, such as design thinking and simulation.

Part 8 illustrates some approaches to Decision Support Systems. This topic is also very important in the context of CE.

Part 9 deals with the Optimization of Engineering Operations and Data Analytics, showing mathematical tools for analyzing a variety of product and design aspects.

Part 10 contains contributions on Digital Manufacturing and Process Simulation with models for supporting, simulating and improving the manufacturing process.

Part 11, Cost Engineering, contains papers on research on estimating and reducing costs in the product development process.

Part 12 addresses the theme Product Lifecycle Management with papers on integrated information systems and reusable models.

Part 13 contains contributions in the area of Service Engineering, emphasizing maintenance and reverse logistics.

Part 14 contains papers on the theme Risk Analysis and Value Engineering, an importing topic in CE.

Part 15, Multi-disciplinary Design Optimization, contains simulation and assessment methods in various application areas.

Part 16 contains papers on the theme Knowledge-based Engineering with an emphasis on modeling.

Part 17, Requirements Engineering, addresses the management and elicitation of product requirements.

Finally, part 18 addresses the theme Supply Chain Collaboration. Papers in this part present different aspects of the supply chain.

We acknowledge the high quality contributions of all authors to this book and the work of the members of the International Program Committee who assisted with the blind peer-review of the original papers submitted and presented at the conference. Readers are sincerely invited to consider all of the contributions made by this year's participants through the presentation of TE2016 papers collated into this book of proceedings. We hope that they will be further inspired in their work for disseminating their ideas for new approaches for sustainable, integrated, product development in a multi-disciplinary environment within the ISPE, Inc. community.

Milton Borsato, General Chair, Federal University of Technology – Parana, Brazil

Nel Wognum, Co-General Chair, ISPE, Inc.

Margherita Peruzzini, Program Chair, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

Josip Stjepandić, Co-Program Chair, PROSTEP AG, Germany

Wim J.C. Verhagen, Secretary General, TU Delft, The Netherlands