Information Technology for Manufacturing A Research Agenda (1995) / Chapter Skim
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7 Organizational and Societal Infrastructure
7 Organizational and Societal Infrastructure
Pages 136-155
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From page 136... ...
ensuring through education and training that the skill base in manufacturing adapts to the new types of tools, techniques, and organizational structures made possible by information technology and to other "best practices" and "benchmarks" not necessarily associated with information technology. Also needed will be execution of global business strategies that protect high-valueadded jobs for U.S.
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From page 137... ...
However, the purpose of introducing personal computers was not to proliferate them or the technology they represent; their use is justified because they can solve real factory problems with a demonstrated dollar benefit. MOTIVATING TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND ACADEMIC-INDUSTRIAL INTERACTION No matter how good are the ideas and advances developed by academic research groups, they are useless in a manufacturing context unless transferred to industry.
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From page 138... ...
FIGURE 7.1 Questions asked at different levels in the manufacturing hierarchy to which information technology can be expected to be responsive.
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From page 139... ...
Industry can help by articulating to academia the basic intellectual issues of manufacturing, not only to help guide research (e.g., by providing data and problems to academic researchers) but also to malice those issues recognizable to people in traditional disciplines.
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One example of a useful exchange is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Leaders for Manufacturing program, which links engineering and business school faculty with industrial representatives and involves master theses developed by students "on location" in manufacturing environments. 4 The Metal Oxide Semiconductor Implementation Service (MOSIS)
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From page 141... ...
to expensive manufacturing equipment and critical information or knowledge. Any program that provides major funding for academic research in manufactur~ng will likely increase academia's interest in manufacturing; of course, that is an objective of the federal Advanced Manufacturing Technology initiative.
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Boeing has established a sophisticated design program for its new line of aircraft, and the supplier-customer relationship established to share designs of parts can benefit a chip maker also trying to share design topics. Both companies share concerns about environmental issues, team development, and technology to share information.
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From page 143... ...
This issue implies training or apprenticeship programs and invites exploration of issues such as just-in-time training for small firms that cannot afford to release staff for more traditional educational environments. Older workers who associate high technology with increased job insecurity may be particularly apprehensive about the introduction of IT.
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From page 144... ...
Such status is consistent with the fact that product designers have a much richer array of computer-based tools to help them in their work than do factory managers or process designers. One consequence of this richer array of tools is that product designers can point to computer-supported decisions whereas others usually must rely on experience and intuition, and it would not be surprising if the preferences of product designers were given more (and perhaps undue)
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From page 145... ...
The technologists regard the managers as being too tied up in return-on-investment concerns and therefore likely to miss emerging capabilities, while the managers and decision makers regard the technologists as being too uninvolved in real factory problems to understand what the customer really wants and needs." Such discussions demonstrated that both technologists and executives need to make greater efforts to bridge the communications gap before technology can be applied to the real problems faced in manufacturing in companies across the United States. Manufacturing managers know that realizing the promise of information technologies to help improve factory performance is not easy, and there are many opportunities for mismatched expectations.
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The scope of change inherent in manufacturing systems can confound financial analyses. The financial impact may appear too large to justify for a single factory, even if the new technology appears worthwhile for the enterprise overall.
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Although pilot plants have been used for years as laboratories to assess production concepts, research is needed to explore how actual production facilities, operating at normal volumes, can be used directly for achieving continuous improvements or innovation. Legitimizing beta test periods would disclose the need for and real costs of a practice to manufacturing management at the proposal stage.
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From page 148... ...
.8 ALRTDs focus on a variety of needs, covering both technical and cultural issues. ALRTDs are intended to provide an active means for transfemng promising research into practice and move technological concepts closer to business ~ An advanced long-range technology demonstration differs from the Advanced Technology Demonstration program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in that the latter is focused primarily on demonstrations of technology just before it is mature enough to support product development.
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STIMULATING THE ADOPTION OF OPEN STANDARDS As discussed in previous chapters, the lack of standards is a major inhibitor to the use of existing information technology for manufacturing. From computer-aided product design tools to real-time machine controllers, the lack of standards in various forms prevents data interchange, increases training costs, and impedes would-be product developers who have to build basic services into their products from scratch.
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From page 150... ...
One answer is that the premature imposition of standards tends to freeze technological development and progress, and manufacturing is certainly one arena in which the use of information technology is relatively immature. But a second important barrier to adopting standards is not rooted in technical issues- a company trying to differentiate its products from those of other vendors may well choose to make them incompatible with others.
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For example, trends toward distributed intelligence, as well as the need to form alliances with other business entities (including outside design and engineering services as well as material and equipment suppliers) , raise important knowledge management issues.
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DEVELOPING NEW MODELS FOR ACCOUNTING AND VALUATION The complexity of a large manufacturing business makes it very difficult for managers to identify operations that cost more than their value warrants. It is thus necessary to develop detailed models of a business that truly relate causes and effects, costs and benefits, and problems and solutions.
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From page 153... ...
Senior management is often legitimately concerned about the potential for misleading financial reporting as a product of estimating the value of intangible assets such as knowledge, and a variety of stakeholders (e.g., analysts, investors and owners, managers of organizations using software, managers of organizations producing software, tax authonties) are likely to have different judgments on what such assets are "truly" worth.
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From page 154... ...
Several needs follow from this assumption: Education of senior managers, to help them make informed decisions about using new, expensive, and perhaps risky information technology; · Education and training of middle managers, to help them reduce barriers to trying new technology that may seem only to consume time and resources or imperil their own jobs; · Education of designers, engineers, manufacturing engineers, and toolmakers to give them an increased technical base so that they can better understand and use computer technology and design relevant software; · Training of factory workers, who are expected to use this new technology to improve their performance and that of their facility; and · Retraining of factory workers whose skills are not compatible with the information technology paradigm and who may have to seek alternative jobs. Even the term "frequent change" may understate the rapidity with which individuals will have to learn new things.
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From page 155... ...
Multimedia and virtual reality technology may hold promise for providing a flexible, socially acceptable, and nonthreatening interface for educational and skill-building programs; an NII and future home and factory systems offer the means to distribute and use such programs. The delivery systems will have to provide overview data as well as fundamental knowledge.
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