| dc.description.abstract | project activities, use of innovative systems, and disintegration of engineering and
production contribute to increase the coordination effort required. Thus, the coordination
mechanisms adopted to manage the engineering and production interface need to be
compatible with the coordination effort required in a specific project situation, otherwise
coordination is not effective.
A field study was conducted to examine a number of alternatives to improve coordination.
In complex engineering projects involving several companies, a holistic view of the project
is missing. Hence, a system approach was used to highlight meaningful changes by showing
how the functional structure of each company and its interdependence generate problems
that delay the project. Functional silos, inadequate contractual rules, and non-aligned
performance measures are attributed to engineering and production not being undertaken
within the boundaries of a single company. In practice each project partner is managing its
own activities but nobody is managing the project as a whole. A project management team
involving members of various companies has been proposed to manage the project jointly,
stimulate collaboration and solve conflicts. In addition to that, the implementation of more
web-based information technology (IT) has been considered as a way to overcome some of
the problems related to the geographical distribution of project partners.
The field study provided insights into several factors influencing the effectiveness of
coordination that were further examined through a multiple case study. The multiple case
study highlighted six contingency factors related to the effect of coordination on lead time,
including: integration of engineering and production, size of the project, overlapping
engineering and production, innovation of the design/technology, collaboration between
project partners, customer change orders and production capability. A number of
propositions were generated to explain the effect of these factors on the lead time. The
findings of the multiple case study suggest that the integration of engineering and
production, as well as the production capability are the two most critical factors
influencing coordination. While integration is important for managing engineering
changes, production capability is essential for solving downstream problems more quickly.
All in all, this research contributes to increase the knowledge on coordination of ETO
supply chains by making sense of coordination problems and explaining these problems in
the light of the coordination theory. By adopting more interactive coordination
mechanisms, it is may be possible to avoid delays and cope with increasing levels of
concurrency to reduce the lead time. In order to develop more specific coordination
mechanisms, a system view is proposed to show how the functional structure of each
company and its interdependence generate problems that delay the project. This research
suggests that complex project situations involving change and uncertainty require that both
engineering and production activities can quickly adapt. Therefore, the value of synergy
between engineering and production on facilitating coordination and minimizing project
delays cannot be ignored. Additionally, this research has also several practical
implications. First, it provides a useful overview of several SCM concepts that ETO
companies can employ. Second, it helps to comprehend the impact of concurrent
engineering and production on the occurrence of project delays. Third, a system approach
describes how to tackle coordination problems and to identify alternatives to improve
coordination. Finally, the research highlights several factors associated with the
occurrence of delays in projects carried out in ETO supply chains. All these findings were
summarized in a coordination framework combining principles, concepts and methods
which can be applied to effectively coordinate ETO supply chains. | nb_NO |
