Implications of the supply chain for role definitions in concurrent engineering

Abstract

To be competitive, manufacturing companies must make greater use of the expertise and knowledge that is available from outside the company, particularly in design. One way in which manufacturing industry is moving is to adopt the philosophy of concurrent engineering (CE), utilizing the expertise of other companies in the supply chain. This paper discusses some ergonomics issues involved in CE from the perspective of supply chains. It outlines some generic attributes and discusses some concepts of federated control systems as applied to supply chains. The implications of these for information flows and the management of distributed knowledge are then discussed. A key issue that arises from this is the need for trust in other people outside the company if the CE philosophy is to work effectively. The paper then discusses the implications of this for the design of roles within the CE workgroup, concluding that the principles of sociotechnical design for roles are appropriate for the design of these roles, ensuring that they have the right attributes for trustworthiness. This provides a link between these principles and business needs that is not often present in discussions of role design, and in future may offer a means by which benchmarking could be achieved in this difficult area. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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