TQO A Socio-Technical Systems Framework for Quality Transformation

这个NSf项目的重点是以质量为导向的产品设计，其具体目标是更好地理解汽车产品设计中技术和人力/组织/文化变量之间的相互依赖关系。 这项研究建立在一个为期四年的计划，工业赞助的使命为导向的研究进行的社会技术系统集成实验室在韦恩州立大学在密歇根州底特律。 在目前的项目中，实验室团队将采取下一步措施，建立其研究计划，并将通用汽车和福特以外的知识扩展到美国汽车工业的其他部分。 具体项目如下。 1)2）构建并现场验证一个正式的模拟模型，该模型包含了影响产品设计工作组的时间和质量性能的全部关键变量; 3）加强社会技术系统理论的理论和方法基础，这是一种重要的变革方法，完全符合质量原则; 4）改进、验证和向工业界转让早期研究中开发的原型管理工具。 通用汽车和福特公司将为实现这些目标进行研究。 在通用汽车公司，研究小组将利用网络分析方法和民族历史地图纵向研究产品设计中涉及的工作组之间的横向和纵向联系的性质。 在福特，该团队将从事人种学和调查研究，旨在揭示在产品设计的有限部分中影响工作组绩效的时间和质量结果的关键变量。（可靠性报告流程，福特质量保证计划的重要组成部分）。 这项研究将从业务角度界定变量，用选定的指数和尺度衡量变量，使用各种方法确定变量之间的关系，并构建和测试正式的模拟模型。 这些相互关联的项目中的每一个都将为汽车行业提供管理质量转型复杂过程的新工具，并将阐明组织科学中的重要问题，包括与组织和文化变革过程相关的问题。

This NSf project is focused on quality oriented product design with the specific objective of developing a better understanding of the interdependencies among technological and human/organizational/cultural variables within the automotive product design. The research builds upon a four year program of industry sponsored mission oriented research conducted by The Laboratory of Socio-Technical Systems Integration at Wayne State University in Detroit Michigan. In the current project, the laboratory team will take the next steps in building its research program, and extending knowledge made beyond General Motors and Ford to other parts of the American automobile industry. The specific of the project are as follows. 1) refine, formalize, and test propositions emerging from earlier work on factors that are critical to product design at the work group level; 2) to construct and field - validate a formal simulation model that incorporates the full suite of key variables that impact the timing and quality performance of product design work groups; 3) to strengthen the theoretical and methodological foundations of socio-technical systems theory, which is an important change methodology that is fully compatible with the quality principles and; 4) to improve, validate and transfer to industry the prototype management tools developed in earlier research. Research to meet these objective will be carried out at GM and Ford. At GM, the research team will utilize network analysis methodology and ethnohistorical mapping to examine longitudinally the nature of horizontal and vertical linkages between work groups involved in product design. At Ford the team will engage in both ethnographic and survey research designed to uncover the key variables that impact on timing and quality outcomes of work group performance in a finite segment of product design.( the Reliability Report Out process, a vital part of Ford's quality assurance program). The research will define variables in operational terms, measure them with selected indices and scales, determine relationships among variables using a variety of methodologies, and construct and test a formal simulation model. Each of these linked project will provide the automotive industry with new tools for managing the complex process of quality transformation, and will shed light on important questions in organizational science, including questions related to organizational and cultural change process.