Tools and methods for integration and management of the evolution of industrial enterprises - feasibility study
Aim: launch projects to improve productivity/competitiveness
and support the change process of industrial enterprises.
projects will develop global methodical approach with
integrating modelling from design to implementation level.
The objective of this proposal is to launch projects to
improve productivity and competitiveness and support the
change process of industrial enterprises. The needs to reach
these objectives have already been identified during the
preparatory phase of this proposal. It is necessary:
* to allow the industrial enterprises to check by themselves
the situation in which they are, from an internal point of
view as well as from an external point of view (situation
related to competition). This action needs the development
of self-diagnosis procedures.
* to develop a global methodological approach allowing
companies to move from their present status, changing not
only the technical part of the firm, but also the
organisational part. Both actions need to be supported by
problem-specific reference models and the application of
existing and new methods and modelling techniques.
* to develop software applications and products to support
the overall methodological approach.
To reach these ambitious objectives, it was decided to
launch first a feasibility study in order to specify the
field of the market, the user requirements, the definition
of the products to be developed and marketed, the planning
and the costs of the various products and the return on
investment (ROI).
This feasibility study will have two workpackages:
* WP1: a feasibility study on self-diagnosis procedures and
overall methodological approaches based on problem-specific
reference models.
* WP2: a feasibility study and pre-specification of
software products dedicated to support self-diagnosis
procedures and overall methodological approaches.
1. Motivation:
In the last 10 years, the economic environment has changed
drastically. The worldwide market confronts the
manufacturing companies with new and shifting market
requirements. The current critical competitive factors are
low cost, high quality, faster product development, shorter
lead time in procurement, production and distribution.
The integration of business operations within and even
between industrial enterprises has much innovation
potential in this respect. Through integration, business
operations can be streamlined, in order not only to shorten
lead times, but also to give radically new options for the
whole enterprise's strategy and organisational structure.
This new situation forces companies to define objectives
not only for the type of enterprise they want to become but
also for the market niche in which they will be able to
compete successfully in coherence with their products.
Integration simplifies problem-solving efforts by making
problems visible and by improving cooperation between
individual functions and the organisation.
To reach this integrated situation, companies have widely
introduced the use of information technology such as CAD
(Computer-Aided Design), CAM (Computer-Aided
Manufacturing), CAPM (Computer-Aided Production
Management), FMS (Flexible Manufacturing Systems), computer
networks, databases, etc. However, this radical change has
shown the limits of such investments which can, quite the
contrary, cause some reverse effects.
* rigidity of the structure, which implies a lack of
dynamic flexibility and reactivity and which does not
allow a downscaling of lead time and time to market;
* rejection of the evolution, making the change of
structure harder.
So, before the introduction of new technologies to speed up
change in the company, performing "new integrative"
thinking in order to prepare the implementation of a new
organisational structure is necessary.
Moreover, this new approach to industrial development is
based on radical or incremental "organisation innovations".
The nature of the innovation depends on the company's
current situation, its perceived problems and chosen
development goal (choice of market segment or integration
in a larger chain from supplier to customer).
The last statement involves managerial behaviour: it must
shift from maintaining current operations to managing
innovation in order to successfully implement, with shorter
lead times, new and more effective practices, systems and
structures based on integration.
However, none of today's approaches is capable of assisting
or accompanying the different evolutionary manufacturing
strategies through the redesign and reorganisation of the
industrial enterprise.
To achieve this we must develop not only the use of
intensive computer techniques, but also new concepts,
models and managerial techniques attuned to the European
mentality in order to improve intangible manufacturing
factors as well.
Warning! from now on, the reader should keep in mind that
the document describes, in the following pages:
* the two planned projects (Project 1 and Project 2).
* the feasibility study (organised into WP1 and WP2) which
is the purpose of this proposal;
2. Field of application of planned projects:
The field of application will involve the improvement of
competitiveness of industrial enterprises in design,
engineering, process planning, production management,
sales, delivery and recycling. It will therefore deal with
enterprise efficiency and the management of change. In
this field we will focus more on the intangible factors of
the enterprise, taking integration into consideration.
Enterprise efficiency measurement: the purpose is to develop
self-auditing procedures for identifying "where we are",
"where our competitors are", "where we should (or would
like) to do".
Management of change: several tools must be developed to
manage the transition. They are supported by:
* a top-down approach:
- modelling techniques
- modelling techniques,
- databases of the various models based on a typology of
problems.
* a bottom-up approach:
- targeted behaviour, considered within the type the
company belongs to and according to the results of the
application of the self-auditing procedures.
- a European configuration of potential practices based
upon the synthesis of the results of the self-auditing
procedures application.
* computerised means to facilitate the use of approaches,
modelling techniques and stored knowledge.
The models must be designed in a space of three axess:
- production axis (from design to manufacturing and after
sales)
- a managerial axis (from business to Real-Time control of
manufacturing systems)
- an evolution axis (from a present status to a target
status).
To achieve and according to our current understanding, we
can envisage two projects:
to the Definition Phase.
* Project 1 which aims to develop self-auditing procedures
(for the use of companies), modelling techniques and
various models (for the use of engineering companies and
departments), a European configuration of potential
practices (for the use of governments and Industrial
Agency). The short name of this project is "Managing
strategic evolution".
* Project 2, the objective of which is to develop
computerised support for a set of methods based on the GRAI
model, in order to analyse, design and implement the
manufacturing system of extended companies. The short name
of this project is "Software tools".
3. Application Domain of the Feasibility Study
To reach these ambitious objectives, the associated
partners of the TIME project propose to launch a seven
month feasibility study in order to:
- define precisely the area of TIME in the space already
mentioned,
- improve the user requirements,
- define the products to be developed and marketed,
- develop the detailed planning and svaluate the costs of
the projects envisaged.
4. Scope of the proposal of the feasibility study and
preliminary description of the workpackages:
The feasibility study will be structured in two
workpackages, each being linked to one of the planned
projects:
- Workpackage 1 (WP1): Definition, specification and
conditions to achieve Project 1: Managing
strategic evolution.
- Workpackage 2 (WP2): Definition, specification and
conditions to achieve Project 2: Software tools.
4.1) Workpackage 1 (WP1): Definition, Specification and
conditions to achieve Project 1: Managing
Strategic Evolution.
The following actions should take place within WP1:
- WP1.1: Definition of the objectives and area:
The area defined by the three axes used hefore is
still very broad. Therefore a more detailed
definition of the objectives and area is required.
- WP1.2: Survey of user requirements.
- Evaluation of existing self audit procedures,
selection and adaptation.
- Performance of the selected procedures.
- Evaluation of the selected procedures and comparison
with the existing evaluation of the companies.
- Market survey.
- WP1.3: Definition of the deliverables to be developed and
marketed.
- List and content of deliverables to be developed,
- Feasibility of these developments,
- Estimat of return on investment
- Choice and case study for validation,
- Commercial agreement between the partners.
- WP1.4: Plan of development for deliverables.
- Schedule, cost
- External specifications of these models and tools,
- Existing methods and tools to be used and specific
development need,
- Definition of concepts and terminology used and
development schema,
- Recommendations for development methods, software
engineering tools and software platforms,
- Recommendations for user interfaces for software
tools,
- Setting up synergic groups between various countries,
- Definition of workpackages (and WP leaders) and
tasks (with partners' role in each task),
- Workplan and planning,
- Setting up of editing rules for all documents
(Editing Committee).
4.2 Workpackage 2 (ZP2): Definition, specification and
conditions to achieve Project 2 "Software Tools".
The following actions should take place within WP2:
- WP2.1: Standard definition - Drawing up of a
standardisation project:
The project will be based mainly on the GRAI method,
while taking into account interfaces for other
methods, especially with regard to the informational
system.
However, as far as the GRAI method is concerned, it is
essential to freeze the formalae. Preliminary work
has been done within the framework of the AUGRAI
working group on standardisation. This should ne done
in close cooperation with the AFNOR CIM
standardisation group, so that the results can be
proposed to CEN-CENELEC.
- WP2.2: Critical assessment of previous implementations.
Thanks to the long enough period of use and the large
number of cases dealt with, it is now possible to make
a valid evaluation of the application of the GRAI
method and of its previous implementations. This
action will take into account both the evolution of
the method over the period considered and the
complexity of the industrial problems tackled. It
will provide the required basis for the market study.
- WP2.3: Segmented market analysis.
The basic idea and objective of the project is to
enable a naive user to describe the process of change
of his/her enterprise.
The main objective of the market analysis will be to
determine hhow far the industrial world is interested
in GRAI-type methods to achieve such an objective. It
will also aim at defining and quantifying the various
segments of the European market.
- WP2.4: Demonstration kit.
To assist the participants in the market analysis, an
evaluation kit will be developed from an existing
graphic editor (GRAI-AO). It will integrate a
hypertext layer in order to deliver a package which
may really assist the customer.
This should not only support our marketing analysis,
but also enable an improvement of the specification of
the final product, through an analysis of various
users.
- WP2.5: Case study based specifications.
The objective of this task is to take into account the
results of the previous tasks of this workpackage in
order to initiate the drawing up of the products'
specifications from an industrial case study performed
Acronym:
TIME (DEF)
Project ID:
824
Start date:
27-11-1992
Project Duration:
8months
Project costs:
1 780 000.00€
Technological Area:
Market Area: