Organizational Mechanisms for Supply Chain Integration During Product and Process Development

产品和过程开发过程中供应链集成的组织机制最近产品设计和开发大规模外包的趋势正在产生一个新的商业挑战：在以快速技术变化和全球竞争为特征的环境中，企业如何有效地创建并随后管理供应商网络中的工程知识交换？特别是，随着美国公司将大部分设计工作外包出去，出现了一个新的担忧，类似于20多年前从亚洲进口变得普遍时引发的担忧。也就是说，美国公司如何通过成为海外供应商工作的集成商来组织自己的生存和繁荣？一些领先的公司已经通过开发一个新的管理和工程职位--供应链集成商--来解决这个问题，以保持产品从概念到客户的一致性，跨越往往众多且不稳定的公司边界。其他公司试图将他们的产品“模块化”，以便各个供应商可以在相对孤立的情况下设计他们的零部件。还有一些公司寻求整合机制，比如依赖全行业的标准。我们建议调查跨多个行业的供应链协调实践，这些行业被选择为具有广泛不同的集成需求。我们将重点放在产品和流程开发期间的外包上，因为开发工作中的集成需求可能特别高。我们问以下问题：(1)对于那些外包的产品和流程开发要素，哪些做法，无论是新奇的还是其他的，都被用来支持跨企业边界的整合？(2)这些机制的相对频率是否因行业而异？(3)这些机制的感知有效性是什么？(4)对于那些雇佣专门的供应链整合人员的公司，是否有特定的技能似乎使这些人员更有效率？

ABSTRACT0323227 (Parker) Organizational Mechanisms for Supply Chain Integration during Product and Process DevelopmentThe recent trend toward large-scale outsourcing of product design and development is creating a new business challenge: How can firms effectively create and subsequently manage engineering knowledge exchange within supplier networks in environments characterized by rapid technological change and global competition? In particular, as U.S. firms outsource much of their design work, a new concern arises, similar to that raised over two decades ago when imports from Asia became common. Namely, how might U.S. firms organize themselves to survive and prosper even as they "hollow out" by becoming integrators of the work performed by overseas suppliers?Some leading firms have approached the problem by developing a new management and engineering position, the supply chain integrator, to maintain product coherence from concept to customer across often-numerous and fluid firm boundaries. Other firms have attempted to "modularize" their products so that individual suppliers can design their components in relative isolation. Still other firms have pursued integration mechanisms such as relying on industry-wide standards. We propose to investigate supply chain coordination practices across multiple industries that are chosen to have widely varying integration needs. We focus on outsourcing during product and process development because integration needs during development work are likely to be especially high. We ask the following questions: (1) For those elements of product and process development that are outsourced, which practices, novel and otherwise, are employed to support integration across firm boundaries? (2) Does the relative frequency of these mechanisms differ across industries? (3) What are these mechanisms' perceived effectiveness? (4) For those firms that employ dedicated supply chain integration personnel, are there particular skills that appear to make these personnel more effective?