Robert Stanard, Graduate Research Assistant,
University of California at Berkeley
David Johnston, Visiting Instructor, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
Assoc. Professor of Management Science, York University
Alice M. Agogino, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Associate Dean of
Engineering
University of California at Berkeley
Abstract
In today's business world, graduating engineers, scientist, and business majors are faced with a highly competitive market place. With a push for reduced design and development times and increased quality control, various branches within a corporation can no longer afford to work as separate entities in a serial mode of production. Successful companies are focusing on the use of multi-functional teams and concurrency in their design and development processes.
With the changes in industry practice and the business climate, there is an increased need for restructuring our college curricula to address the needs of this competitive market place. The goals of the NSF-funded Synthesis Coalition are to address these needs by creating new curricula that expose students to creative synthesis and open-ended problem solving experiences and teach process in addition to technical content. Synthesis-based instruction is rich in "real life" engineering material, in which theory is related to engineering practice through the use of engineering case studies that are integrated throughout the curriculum with actual engineering products and processes, open-ended design problems, and "best practices" from industry. Instruction is structured so that students are able to develop their written, verbal, and graphical communication skills as well as their course knowledge through group design projects, case role playing and class discussion [1].
"People, Products, and Process" is a multimedia courseware package that was developed to assist engineering, science and business students in understanding and contextualizing the fundamental concepts of the various functional roles in product design and process development. In this courseware, students are presented with open-ended problems that require them to explore the inherent tradeoffs between the functional perspectives within a corporation. The courseware is based on actual examples from a diverse range of industries and manufacturing models.
Introduction and Objectives
"People, Product and Process" is a multimedia case study comprised of information from Northern Telecom, Invar Manufacturing, Clorox Corporation, and Dupont Plastics. Northern Telecom's DMS (Digital Multiplexing System) Manufacturing Facility shows the operations behind the manufacturing and assembly of circuit boards for telephone switching units; Invar Manufacturing exhibits the internal department collaboration necessary to operate a world class job shop for precision manufacturing; Clorox shows the necessary developmental team work for new product development of consumable goods; while Dupont's Polyethylene Film Manufacturing Plant covers the corporate structure necessary to sustain Dupont as a leader in the manufacturing of plastic film for liquid packaging. Through open-ended questions and student-directed navigation in these case studies, the student is able to develop a thorough understanding of the inner mechanisms that govern successful process engineering and product development.
Students in engineering, business management, or related fields can use the multimedia case study with courses in Industrial or Engineering Design, Design for Manufacturing, Operations Management, Engineering Management, Manufacturing Strategy, Management of Technology or Business Policy. This case study highlights competitive industry practices in a way that enables the student to understand the dependencies between various functional areas within a company, such as tradeoffs that are inherent between marketing, design, and manufacturing. Through information collected from diverse industries, students are also able to comprehend better how similar functional teams within different companies vary depending on the industry in which they work.
The courseware was developed for students at all levels of industrial exposure. The student is not expected to have extensive, if any work experience prior to courseware exposure. This case study is extensive enough for graduate students with industrial, design and business exposure, yet comprehensible enough to be used by students in introductory level university courses. The courseware is designed to scaffold the student to:
* Understand the inner mechanisms that drive corporate success. Develop the ability to ask the right questions of various functional perspectives in order to understand the competitive focus of a company or business.
* Develop a better understanding of the functional roles within multi-functional teams for product and process development. Understand the dependencies between diverse functional positions within a company.
* Understand the inherent tradeoffs among various functional perspectives in order for successful product and process development. Understand how priorities and tradeoffs of various functional perspectives differ within a range of industries.
* Acquire practical knowledge of product and process development within corporations that can be generalized for use in new situations.
* Understand the importance of incorporating customer satisfaction and quality issues with product and process development.
* Appreciate the cost management and budgeting skills necessary for project management, and product development.
* Develop a better understanding and appreciation for concurrent engineering.
* Develop the verbal skills of participants by using design team activities requiring communication about marketing and manufacturing capabilities.
Learning Environment
The multimedia case study is designed to be used in a broad range of educational situations. Portions of the case can be used to enhance classroom lectures and discussion. However, the case is designed primarily for use in computer labs and small meeting or break out rooms. The pedagogical intent is for student teams to be formed with a group size of three or four. They will be asked to play a functional role (e.g. marketing manager, product or process engineer, plant manager, manufacturing supervisor, finance or accounting specialist, etc.) with the case exercise. Together they will be exposed to compressed video and audio about the company's product(s) and process using the developed courseware. They will also be given some text on the background of the companies within the case study. Each role player will get to consult individually with their functional managers for the real-life companies in "People, Products and Process". Each student will then be asked to make policy decisions about the marketing requirements and manufacturing strategies of the company, given the knowledge and information displayed by corporate representatives of particular roles.
Fig. 1: Assignment Process
First students will individually discuss issues related to their functional role within the role-specific text fields. The students will then be asked to meet with other students in their group to prepare a joint model of the firm (Fig. 1). During these discussions, the students will play their functional roles and address the unique concerns of their position. The courseware will provide the background information needed for the participants to understand the requirements, capabilities, consistency and demands involved in the company's decisions process.
The student teams will do the above exercise for the different companies, each time rotating their roles. Each company also represents a different industry with different marketing requirements and manufacturing capabilities which require different priorities and policies if the company is to be successful. The entire exercise should be done in conjunction with the courseware.
Content Domain
The courseware design embodies competitive practices from a number of different perspectives. Engineering leaders advocate concurrent engineering and design for manufacturing for a number of years now. Manufacturing strategy and operations management in business schools advocate greater functional integration in order to facilitate time based competition and lean manufacturing. Organizational behavior specialists advocate team based organizations with greater inter-functional participation. The end goal of the enterprise is higher quality products delivered in a shorter period of time and increased productivity.
A critical, but often highly uncertain activity, occurs at the front end of any product development or product re-engineering process, where people from diverse backgrounds and agendas come together to decide on the direction of their efforts. The danger of not having a "shared model" of the existing market requirements and the manufacturing capabilities of the firm is that people in these teams will not begin at the same starting point and thus cannot understand each other as various projects evolve. The outcome can be missed opportunities, costly mistakes and counterproductive politics. Engineers may get locked into a design or technology that no one wants to buy, or cannot be made economically. Marketers may push for products that take advantage of a potential market, but which cannot be made given the capabilities available to design and produce the product. The manufacturing people may propose systems and policies for manufacturing of products that are stable and cost effect, but which do not support market growth or design changes.
In order to effectively employ multifunctional teams and concurrent engineering the people involved in process and product development must have a shared knowledge of the appropriate focus that addresses the requirements of a competitive market place and the manufacturing capabilities in the plant, while maintaining the product's original design objective. In light of this, the multimedia case study titled "People, Products and Process" explores the roles of various functional teams in product design and process development in order to aid engineering and business students in understanding the mechanisms that assure successful product development (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2: Multi-Functional teams
Fig. 3: Main Menu and Navigational Backbone
The content which describes the concerns, concepts and methods of each functional area is vast (usually taught in separate courses within business schools). The integrative multimedia case study "People, Products and Process" is a simplified model of these concepts which gives students an introductory overview of this material. Although extensive use of hypermedia is used, the main navigational backbone (Fig. 3) parallels the conceptual structure of the multi-functional team model in Fig. 2. The use of video and audio presents the student with an actual functional representative for each of the four firms. The nuances of how they describe their concerns, the language, and the attitude is communicated in most cases through this use of multimedia. In each of the four companies used, the company representatives talk about their functional roles and about their relationship with other functional areas within the company or plant. The courseware provides an integration of these various functional concerns in order to develop a shared understanding of the overall product design and development strategy chosen.
System Modules
"People, Products and Process" is broken into twelve sections or modules. These modules represent the categorical breakdown of the courseware and can be accessed through the main menu card in Fig. 3. The courseware is broken down into the following modules:
Goal Statement & Product Introduction: In these modules the student is introduced to the case study, and the individual & team goals of the assignment. The student is also introduced to the various products produced by the different companies in the courseware. The student will be able to see video footage as well as still photographs of the various products produced. Text is also included in this module to describe the products that are presented.
Plant Tours: Students are able to take a plant tour of Dupont Plastics, Invar Manufacturing, Clorox Corporation, and Northern Telecom in this module. The plant tours are broken into several video sections of about a minute duration each. Therefore, the students is able to see various sections of interest within each plant. The video footage shows detailed operations of each plant and allows the student to acquire background information on the four companies.
Manufacture & Production: Students are introduced to manufacturing and production operations within each organization. Video clips and sound bytes from the manufacturing and production representatives are accessible in the cards of this module. It is broken into eight sections in which the company representatives address eight different issues that are pertinent for their plant's or company's success.
Development Teams: Issues surrounding development teams are covered in this module. The section emphasizes the need for multi-functional teams and explains their role in product and process development. This module also touches on the functional roles of various group members within the multi-functional teams.
Upper Management: This module introduces the student to the upper managers within each organization. Interview footage with each of the managers from the corporations are shown. This module is broken into four sections in which the company executives address four different issues that are pertinent for their plant's or company's success. Additional textual information is also provided to explain the functional role of a plant manager. The Finance & Accounting submodule introduces the student to the financial controllers and managers within each organization. In the Engineering & Technical submodule the student is introduced to engineering and technical supervisors within each organization. In the Human Resources submodule the student is introduced to the human resources and human relation representatives within each organization. Additional information concerning Manufacturing and Production management is provided in the last submodule.
Design For Manufacturing: Discussion of the importance of addressing manufacturing issues in the design process are found in this module. Good design practices for product development are explained. A solid foundation for addressing manufacturing issues in product and process development is established here.
Concurrent Engineering: This module explains concurrent engineering practices. It discusses the need for concurrent engineering as well as how it is used. The importance of working parallel in product and process development is explained. The key players involved with concurrent engineering as well as there functional role is presented for each company.
Summary
The integrative multimedia case study "People, Products and Process" provides an interactive overview of the concepts behind manufacturing strategies and product success. Students are given a first hand look at the actual inner mechanisms of manufacturing plants, process operations and job shops. In each of the four companies used, the company representatives talk about their functional roles and about their relationship with other functional areas within the company or plant. The student is able to see the product, understand the process and interact with key figures within the corporate structure. Through the use of text, sound, picture, and video, the student is able to achieve a greater understanding of this material than previously experienced using standard text books and readers. Integrated with the case study pedagogical model [2] the student has the opportunity to work with teams to generalize this knowledge through the introduction of open-ended design and decision making problems associated with the case.
Future developments will include additional corporations to the infrastructure that has been established in order to expand the diversity of the corporations represented in the courseware. This will broaden the range of industrial perspectives presented, which in turn will establish a sound foundation for good product and process development that students may apply to any situation. The case study will also be available on the World Wide Web (WWW) in the future. Other multimedia case studies of engineering design which follow a similar organizational framework are available on CD ROM and can be viewed on the WWW from the "On-line Courseware Link" from the NEEDS (National Engineering Education Delivery System) at URL: http://www.needs.org/.
Acknowledgments
We thank York University of North York, Ontario and the participating companies for the initial sponsorship of the first "People Products and Process" case study by Prof. David Johnston. The original case study was written By Prof. Johnston in a computer program linked to a video disk of the video clips. The goal of the current project is to update and expand the case material and integrate into off-the-shelf multimedia programs which are widely available today. The new work was funded by the National Science Foundation through the Synthesis Engineering Education Coalition.
References
[1] Agogino, A.M. and W. H. Wood III, "The Synthesis Coalition: Information Technologies Enabling a Paradigm Shift in Engineering Education," Keynote talk, in Hyper-Media in Vaasa'94: Proceedings of the Conference on Computers and Hypermedia in Engineering Education (Ed., M. Linna and P.Ruotsala, Vaasa Institute of Technology) pp. 3-10.
[2] Hsi, S. and A.M. Agogino, "The Impact and Instructional Benefit of Using Multimedia Case Studies to Teach Engineering Design ,"Journal of Educational Hypermedia and Multimedia., Vol. 3, No. 3/4, pp. 351-376.