IJOPM
14,10
30
Organizational Approaches to
the Implementation of
Simultaneous Engineering
Delavar G. Shenas
University College of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada, and
Sepehr Derakhshan
San Diego State University, Calexico, California, USA
Introduction
Simultaneous engineering (SE) is increasingly becoming a dominant feature of
the modern manufacturing design and development process. Many firms,
however, are finding it difficult to implement simultaneous engineering
effectively, partly because of their neglect of the organizational aspect of
simultaneous engineering.
Many manufacturing processes increasingly require integration of hitherto
distinct technological fields. As an example, the automobile is the product of
several streams of scientific discipline and/or core technologies. In this industry,
such diverse fields as mechanical engineering, electronics, semi-conductors,
new materials and composites, robotics, computer software, and modern
metallurgical processes must be integrated to produce high-performance
vehicles. This complex processes of systemic innovation requires systems
organization between different and heterogeneous technologies and types of
expertise[1]. As a result, firms must design institutional arrangements which
facilitate the integration of functional expertise and deployment of SE.
The multitude of processes and technologies raises the following question for
the original equipment manufacturers (OEM): what are the institutional
arrangements, especially in terms of organizational form, which optimize the
utilization of these technologies[2]? This question touches on two different
types of institutional issues. First, what shape should the internal organization
of the company take? Second, how should companies be organized in the
industry, that is the industrial organization of manufacturers? Since no one
company can possibly possess all the relevant technologies and competences
required in the production of complex products, OEMs must rely on other
companies for a significant portion of their material and technological inputs.
In such a context, co-ordination and integration of the total production process
becomes the most important function of the OEMs. Both of these organizational
issues are interrelated and require an integrative approach to organizational
design. In general, new technologies and production methods, as well as
competitive market requirements, necessitate new forms of internal
organization, which in turn require a change in the relationship of suppliers and
Received September 1992
Revised November 1993
International Journal of Operations
& Production Management, Vol. 14
No. 10, 1994, pp. 30-43. © MCB
University Press, 0144-3577