Information Knowledge Systems Management - Volume 11, issue 1-2

Article Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0206

Citation: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 11, no. 1-2, pp. 1-1, 2012

Article Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0205

Citation: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 11, no. 1-2, pp. 3-4, 2012

Authors: Kessler, William | McGinnis, Leon | Bennett, Nathan

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The capability to manufacture products in the global marketplace is being revolutionized by technological advancements, the opportunity to capture innovation and capabilities from worldwide sources, the enticement of entering new markets, and changing business and political models. Many view this opportunity as creating an inflection point for manufacturing which could provide leaders and fast followers with a competitive edge in leveraging and penetrating the global marketplace. The Tennenbaum Institute at Georgia Tech …has the mission of providing knowledge and skills for enterprise transformation. The Institute has focused on developing transformation strategies and capabilities related to large-scale enterprise transformation. Such strategies and capabilities are applicable to all enterprise transformations and can be used to accelerate the transformation and minimize waste of any specific domain transformation. The Institute has recently selected manufacturing as one of its domain focus topics and this publication is intended to document progress on the transformative challenges of manufacturing in a global enterprise. The intent of this chapter is to: 1) provide an introduction to the topics of enterprise transformation and manufacturing in a global enterprise, 2) introduce the reader to how the publication is organized, how it flows, and how a specific global manufacturing case study creates the thread that links the chapters, 3) discuss the research challenges, 4) introduce the reader to the Tennenbaum Institute's enterprise transformation research approach and strategy, and 5) review the motivation and challenges related to manufacturing in a global enterprise. Show more

Keywords: Interdisciplinary research, trans-disciplinary research, enterprise transformation, knowledge exchange, technology transfer, complex adaptive system, socio-technical systems

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0170

Citation: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 11, no. 1-2, pp. 5-22, 2012

Authors: McGinnis, Leon F. | Kessler, William

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Enterprise transformation inevitably requires knowledge that is neither resident in nor immediately available from outside the enterprise. Among the alternatives for obtaining this required knowledge is a collaborative research relationship between a university-based research team and the stakeholders involved in transformation. This chapter discusses some of the key issues in creating and sustaining such a relationship.

Keywords: Transformation research, multidisciplinary research, industry-university, collaboration

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0171

Citation: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 11, no. 1-2, pp. 23-38, 2012

Authors: McGinnis, Leon F. | Thiers, George

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In transforming any large scale, complex, global supply network, a key challenge is knowledge management. There are many stakeholders, spread across a number of enterprise functions, whose decisions directly or indirectly impact the success of the transformation. Typically, each stakeholder has important, often tacit knowledge that in contemporary practice is difficult or impossible to share effectively with other stakeholders, yet can be critical to the success of the transformation. The intended "to be" state maybe defined …abstractly, but the full intent may not be explicitly understood by all stakeholders. The lack of a complete coherent shared understanding of the to-be state can have major repercussions in transformation decision making. The challenge for global enterprises is to capture as much of the critical tacit or implicit knowledge as is practical, so it can be vetted, shared, re-used, and leveraged. This chapter introduces a methodology and a set of tools that can be used to effect some aspects of knowledge capture, sharing and re-use in the context of enterprise transformation, and illustrates their use with two examples. Show more

Keywords: Enterprise modelling, formal language, SysML

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0172

Citation: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 11, no. 1-2, pp. 39-57, 2012

Authors: Basole, Rahul C. | Bellamy, Marcus A.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The health of a global supply network (GSN) plays an important role in the effective and timely delivery of complex products and services. Decision makers are in need of a holistic approach inclusive of several aspects affecting GSN performance, moving beyond traditional approaches that limit GSN analysis to a singular aspect, such as operational or financial performance. We argue that GSN health consists of four key aspects: operational, financial, collaboration, and strategic health. Using a network …analytic approach, we propose a methodology to assess and visualize GSN health. We illustrate our methodology using a field study in the aerospace industry. Our contributions are multifold. Theoretically, we contribute to our understanding of GSNs as multimodal networks consisting of both technical and social relationships. From a managerial perspective, we provide a GSN health assessment and visualization framework that enables decision makers to identify risks, determine potential paths of their diffusion, and devise appropriate mitigation strategies. Show more

Keywords: Global supply networks, network health, supply chain management, network analysis, visualization

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0173

Citation: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 11, no. 1-2, pp. 59-76, 2012

Authors: Bello, Daniel | Bovell, Leah

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Many severe and costly supply network disruptions have been documented in the academic and business literatures, and the issue is receiving increased coverage and consideration by scholars and practitioners. It is widely acknowledged that recent trends in supply network management, such as greater global interconnectivity, make firms more susceptible to disruption risk than ever before. Further, research has demonstrated that firms are generally not able to quickly recover from the negative economic impacts …associated with supply disruptions. Passive acceptance of disruptions is not a viable option; therefore, firms face a pressing need to develop superior disruption risk management capabilities. Supply network risk management has been defined as the management of external and supply network risk through a coordinated approach among supply network members to reduce vulnerability in the supply chain. Today's global manufacturing networks are complex socio-technical systems, which require socio-technical strategies for managing disruption risks. While the extant research heavily focuses on `hard' technical strategies such as second sourcing and inventory management, 'soft' socio strategies have received minimal attention. This chapter highlights socio factors such as relational closeness that are also crucial for supply partners to jointly resolve problems and contributes to the literature on disruption risk management by identifying associations between specific characteristics of relationships between partners, effective risk identification and joint problem resolution. Specifically, the chapter focuses on the dyadic relationships between a global manufacturing firm and its first tier suppliers. This dyad is the first key link in the supply network and the research conclusions may be applied to other dyadic links in the global network of suppliers. Show more

Keywords: Global supply network, supply disruption risk, collaboration, joint problem resolution, relationship closeness, trust, risk magnitude, risk likelihood

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0174

Citation: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 11, no. 1-2, pp. 77-99, 2012

Authors: Bodner, Douglas A. | Lee, I-Hsiang

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In the past several decades, manufacturing has begun the process of transforming from a production firm centric enterprise into one in which a lead firm engages multiple partner and supplier firms in a networked enterprise to produce complex systems and products. Inherent in this transformation is the notion of global manufacturing as a socio-technical enterprise, co-emphasizing socio-interaction among firms with the more traditional technical focus on meeting production quotas, minimizing costs and maximizing profits. This …chapter presents the methodology of organizational simulation as applied to the study and analysis of global manufacturing. Computer simulation has a rich history of application in analyzing the behavior and performance of manufacturing systems from a technical perspective, focusing on such concepts as forecasted product demand, production capacities and lead times, transportation capacities and lead times, inventory locations and levels, and production schedules, as well uncertainties associated with these factors. This perspective fails to consider socio-behaviors associated with firms and their interactions. Organizational simulation is a new paradigm whereby technical process modeling and social behavior modeling are combined to represent the behavior and predict the performance of the socio-technical enterprise. It has been applied in military acquisition, product design and health care. This chapter presents its application in global manufacturing enterprises, particularly to the issues of stakeholder alignment during change, alignment of stakeholder expectations and allocation of limited shared resources. Show more

Keywords: Organizational simulation, socio-technical system behavior, enterprise network governance, risk analysis

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0175

Citation: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 11, no. 1-2, pp. 101-117, 2012

Authors: Goetschalckx, Marc | Huang, Edward | Mital, Pratik

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: It has been widely documented that disruptions and changes in the environment of manufacturing in a global enterprise impact the performance of the enabling supply network. The need exists for a methodology that can not only provide an objective and transparent evaluation of the efficiency and risks of a supply network configuration but that can also design supply network configurations with provably superior performance. Supply chain engineering (SCE) fundamentally applies the perspective and methodology …of systems engineering to the domain of supply chains. SCE is the integrator of various corporate functions such as purchasing, production, distribution, and sustainment over the total product life cycle from design, through deployment, production, sustainment, and disposal. A supply chain is actually a network that consists of a diverse set of organizational and geographical components that typically change over time. The systematic design and management of such an inherently complex system requires the principles and tools of model-based systems engineering. A comprehensive and integrated model of the structure and the behavior of the supply network of a manufacturing enterprise has been developed. In this model the inherent uncertainty of the future environmental conditions in which the supply network will have to function is captured in a large number of scenarios. The variability of the profits achieved by the supply network for the various scenarios is used as a proxy for the supply network risk. The model allows for the explicit tradeoff of the systems life cycle profit with the variability of this profit. An efficient solution algorithm eliminates the vast majority of feasible supply network configurations from consideration and identifies all the Pareto-optimal configurations. However, the final selection of the network configuration depends on the risk preferences of the designer and the complexity of the enterprise. Selecting the supply network configuration with the appropriate robustness becomes one of the principal risk mitigation policies for the network and, in turn, the enterprise. The combination of the socio (designer risk preferences and analysis) and technical (Pareto-optimization of all feasible supply network configurations) creates a transparent engineering design process that finds the supply network configuration best matched to the objectives of the manufacturing enterprise. Show more

Keywords: Supply chain and network design, robust systems design, risk-based design, modeling-based decision support, supply chain risk management

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0176

Citation: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 11, no. 1-2, pp. 119-130, 2012

Authors: Cavusgil, S. Tamer | Deligonul, Seyda

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Country risks are macro level risks. As exogenous risks, these ripple down from country to company level, embodied in strategy, relationships, collaboration, operations, and cultural patterns. This chapter examines the process of risks as they transit with a domino effect from macro level to company level. We consider the misalignment to be at the heart of such risk rippling. Alignment (or misalignment) between the two partners, operating from two different countries, represents the underpinnings of risk …spills and shifts (which we refer as risk debasement) in the overall workings of a supply network. The chapter is based on several considerations. First, we establish the literature and theory pertaining to this topic. Second, we examine the observations that are gathered through field study of suppliers in Turkey and Italy involved in a globally created complex product – the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter (F-35). We then delve into the discussion of consequent hazards when the risk issues are not resolved. Show more

Keywords: Country level risk, risk analysis, strategic visibility, strategic congruence, adverse selection, moral Hazard, hold-up problem, culture gap

DOI: 10.3233/IKS-2012-0177

Citation: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 11, no. 1-2, pp. 131-149, 2012