Engineering management: operational design coordination, Study notes of Engineering management

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, ALEX H. B. DUFFY‡ , IAN WHITFIELD‡ and WILLIAM HILLS† Effective engineering management is acknowledged as being fundamental to the successful operation of organizations. While traditional and contemporary approaches to operational engineering management are of great significance, there remains a need to make further advances in this field. Such advances will enable an increase in the competitiveness of an organization by contributing toward delivering quality products in shorter timescales at an acceptable cost. As such, there is a requirement for a more comprehensive and innovative approach that offers a means of improving the operational management of engineering. Existing approaches recognize coordination as an important and pervasive characteristic of operational engineering management; however, they fail to offer a consistent understanding and appreciation of the concept. This paper comprehensively identifies the key elements of operational design coordination, which will provide the basis for an improved approach to engineering management. 1. Introduction Management has been considered as consisting of a strategic level and an operational level (Greenley 1989, Cole 1994). Finlay (2000) identified that an organization comprises a strategic apex to oversee the whole of the business, and an operational core described as the people who perform the basic, day-to-day pro- cesses. Greenley (1989) described strategic management as providing a framework for operational management, which was defined as being concerned with the efficient use of the existing production capacity. Similarly, Cole (1994) described the rela- tionship between the two levels by stating that ‘strategic management produces the primary goals and framework within which they can be realised for operational management’. Furthermore, it was indicated that the concerns of strategy were effectiveness (i.e. ensuring that the organization is doing the right thing) whereas the concerns of operations were efficiency (i.e. doing things right). This paper focuses on the operational level of management. The operational management of large made-to-order engineering products can be complex, expensive and time-consuming due to the involvement of many resources and tasks, and large quantities of data, information and knowledge. The complexity is compounded by the fact that resources are often skilled in a variety of disciplines and exhibit varying proficiency regarding the completion of multiple inter-related tasks. Furthermore, due to unforeseen circumstances, resources may not perform as intended and/or scheduled tasks may not progress as expected, the outcome of which will influence the performance of the design development process. A methodical and well-organized design development process lies at the heart of an effective engi- neering company since it can enable the reduction of development costs and cycles while meeting customer quality requirements. Thus, to remain competitive, new approaches to managing the design development process are needed to ensure effec- tive and efficient processes (i.e. strategically to do the right things and operationally to do things right). The aim of this paper is twofold. First, coordination is revealed to be an important and pervasive characteristic of existing approaches to operational engineering management. Second, the key elements of operational design coordination are ident- ified that provide the foundation for a more comprehensive approach than those existing. 2. Engineering management In 1916, Fayol (1949) wrote General and Industrial Management in which management was described as a process consisting of planning, organization, coordi- nating, directing and controlling. Lock (1993) named Fayol as the founding father of engineering management and modern management theory. In addition, Bennett (1996) cited the work of Fayol as the origin in the field of the management process forming the basis for much other work in this area. Despite Fayol’s pioneering work on management in the early 1900s, engineering management only emerged as a discipline in its own right in the latter part of the 20th century. As such, various interpretations of the term engineering management have emerged and, consequently, numerous definitions exist. Although engineering management has started to attain the status of a recognized discipline, research efforts in this field have been described as fragmented and uncoordinated (Lock 1993). Furthermore, Lock noted that in the current climate of rapid technological change and an intensively competitive global environment there is a demand for a renewed emphasis on effective engineering management and a re-evaluation of traditional attitudes and approaches. This point is echoed by Thamhain (1992), who recognized that today’s engineering environment is more challenging than ever before due to increased technical complexity, and interdependency of technical tasks. In addition to the need for a coordinated research effort in the field of engineering management, there is also a requirement to continue improving existing approaches and introduce new approaches. Duffy et al. (1993) indicated that improving the engi- neering design process will remain the focus of research until adequate solutions, which can be implemented in industry, can be found. On a similar theme, Andreasen et al. (1996) recognized that it is increasingly evident that significant improvements and efficiency gains can be made within engineering design since much time and effort is lost due to the lack of focus on both the application and management of design work. There is a requirement for an improved approach to engineering management in order to cope with growing competitive pressure and increased complexity of the design development process and products. Competitive pressure is a perennial problem of engineering organizations compelling them to out-perform their contem- poraries in order to be more attractive to existing and potential customers. Engineering design has seen the advent of a range of management approaches, which have been implemented within industry. In order to identify the underlying concept of an improved approach to engineering management it is appropriate to 434 G. Coates et al. With regard to project management, Bailetti et al. (1994) viewed coordination as an important factor differentiating successful and unsuccessful projects, with performance in product development described as being linked to a higher degree of coordination. Oberlender (1993) defined project management as ‘the art and science of co-ordinating people, equipment, materials, money, and schedules to complete a specified project on time and within approved cost’, and, as such, the duty of the project manager was described as organizing a project team of people and coordinating their efforts in a common direction to bring a project to successful completion. It was also stated that coordination could be achieved through effec- tive communication, specifically at regularly scheduled team meetings. On the theme of communication, Bendeck et al. (1998) implied that coordination could be achieved by providing a notification mechanism that keeps all team members up to date on the current project state. Lock (1996) indicated that project management involves planning, coordinating and controlling the complex and diverse activities of modern industrial projects, causing much of a project manager’s time to be spent coordinating, which was described as steering and integrating the activities of some departments and relying on others for information and supporting services. Cleetus et al. (1996) stated that, previously, much emphasis in project management had been placed solely on management. It was implied that rather than control or management by one person, the objective should be coordination among people engaged in tasks. Coordination was said to be brought about by communication and responsible workers knowing about the completion of tasks on which they are dependent. In summary, coordination has been recognized as an important and pervasive characteristic within a number of approaches to engineering management. However, the term coordination has been seen to have various meanings and, as such, there is a lack of a unified understanding. Thus, design coordination is proposed as being key to an improved approach to engineering management leading to performance improvements in the design development process. That is, design coordination does not just play a peripheral role in engineering management, but lies at the heart of an effective approach that is more comprehensive than any that currently exist. Indeed, with respect to engineering management, Duffy et al. (1999) stated that ‘a more relevant, comprehensive, and appropriate approach is required for optimum performance’, and, thus, suggested design coordination as such an approach. Similarly, Andreasen et al. (1996) identified that the effective coordination of the design process is the key to achieving optimal design performance. Due to the varying perceptions of coordination it is recognized that there is a requirement for further research in this field with the aim of gaining a better under- standing of its nature and potential as an approach to engineering management in its own right. 4. The nature of operational design coordination In order to identify the key elements of operational design coordination, this section not only draws from literature related to engineering design, but also from organizational theory and distributed artificial intelligence. Literature has been included from these disciplines since they identify coordination as relevant and important, and a key research problem (Jennings 1993, Malone and Crowston 1994, Findler and Elder 1995, Nwana et al. 1996, Greenwood et al. 1997, Heck 1999). Engineering management: operational design coordination 437 4.1. Coherence ‘Everyone has an intuitive idea of what co-ordination means, however it is difficult to explain what it is and why it is needed’ (Cruz et al. 1996). Despite this reported difficulty, a number of authors have offered their respective view of coordination. For example, Fayol (1949) stated that ‘to co-ordinate was to layout the timing and sequencing of activities, bind together, unify, and harmonise all activities and effort’. Further, Van de Ven et al. (1976) defined coordination as ‘integrating or linking together different parts of an organisation to accomplish a collective set of tasks’. In addition, coordination has been regarded as involving ‘the timely exchange of information and resources, the division and allocation of tasks, and the synchroni- sation of actions’ (Kleinman 1990), and ‘intelligent decision making agents sharing information and resources in order to solve a common set of tasks’ (Findler and Elder 1995). In the context of engineering design, coordination has been described as involving ‘the effective utilisation of resources in order to carry out tasks for the right reasons, at the right time, to meet the right requirements and give the right results’ (Duffy et al. 1999). Based on this description, Coates et al. (2000) reported ‘co-ordination as the concept of the appropriate activities being performed, in a certain order, by a set of capable agents, in a fitting location, at a suitable time, in order to complete a set of tasks’. Also related to engineering design, Crabtree et al. (1997) identified a coordi- nation challenge as ‘how can each engineer’s design tasks be managed so that it interacts and integrates well with the efforts and results of other engineers?’, and intimated that a lack of coordination would lead to schedule delays, re-work, and cost increase. Wilson and Shi (1996) stated that ‘engineering design problems are often solved by a group of individual participants with different expertise, loosely organised as a design team’. As such, it was recognized that design participant’s activities must be coordinated in order to maintain coherence. Similarly, Durfee and Montgomery (1990) viewed a coordination technique as ‘how a group of people organise them- selves to work as a coherent team in order to accomplish some task’. With regard to a distributed artificial intelligence setting, Chauhan (1997) indi- cated that coordination and coherence are related in that ‘greater co-ordination results in a more coherent solution to the overall problem’. Bond and Gasser (1988) suggested that coherence involves how well the entire system behaves as a whole while solving a problem. On the theme of coherence, Nwana et al. (1996) viewed the prevention of chaos as a main reason for needing coordination and, thus, described coordination as ‘a process in which agents engage in order to ensure their community acts in a coherent manner, i.e. agent actions gel well and do not cause conflict with one another’. Chaos avoidance in multi-agent environments has been widely recognized as the requirement for coordination. For example, Jennings (1996) recognized that without coordination, the advantages of decentralized problem-solving disappear and a society of agents can rapidly become a collection of chaotic individuals. Similarly, Jamali et al. (1999) described several scenarios in which the lack of coordi- nation in large agent ensembles resulted in chaotic behaviour. 4.2. Communication Views of coordination have been reported as involving ‘sharing information’ (Findler and Elder 1995) and ‘the timely exchange of information’ (Kleinman 1990). Implicit within these perceptions is the aspect of communication, or interactions, between entities. Indeed, Cleetus et al. (1996) stated that ‘co-ordination is brought 438 G. Coates et al. about by communication’. Similarly, Carstensen (1996) stated that ‘communication is the basic means of co-ordination’. de Jong (1997) elaborated by recognizing that most coordination mechanisms for multi-agent systems rely on the exchange of struc- tured information. Chauhan (1997) stated that ‘communication enables the agents in a multi-agent system to exchange information on the basis of which they co-ordinate their actions and co-operate with each other’. Cruz et al. (1996) proffered that coordination pro- blems arise in the organization of interactions of a group of entities that collaborate and cooperate to accomplish some task and to satisfy some goals. Jennings (1996) identified the dependencies between multiple agent actions as a main reason for the need to coordinate those actions. Bond and Gasser (1988) indicated that coordination is the interaction among a set of agents performing some collective action. As such, coordination has been viewed as the management of interactions between agents (Arbab 1998). Coordination between team members was said to be maintained through meetings when problems arise and through consultation with the team leader (Hegazy et al. 1998). Fayol (1949) viewed conferencing of departmental heads as a means of inform- ing a management of the running of a concern in order to clarify the cooperation to be expected between the various departments. The frequency of conferences was described as that which would ensure harmonizing activity (i.e. coordination). Hansen et al. (1997) conducted a study into coordination activities in the context of engineering design. Activity logs where used to measure the level of coordination (i.e. time used on meetings and planning as a percentage of the total time of the project). The findings of the study indicated that either a low or high level of coordi- nation resulted in low project quality, whereas a medium level of coordination produced a high project quality. Similar to the work of Hansen et al. (1997), Crabtree et al. (1997) conducted a study aimed at identifying coordination problems within collaborative design and assessing the proportion of an engineer’s time attributed to performing coordination activities. A survey of engineering organizations showed that the time to complete a project increased by 20–30% as a result of coordination problems. Further, the survey revealed that in collaborative design, coordination activities occupied 69% of an engineer’s time. These statistics corroborate with those indicated by Andreasen et al. (1996), who reported that engineers only spend approximately one-third of their time doing ‘real design’. As such, it was stated that ‘a considerable amount of time and effort is wasted by the lack of focus on the application and management of design effort’ and ‘the potential for improvement in better productive use of engineering design resource is substantial—providing we have the mechanisms to realise it’. 4.3. Task management Coordination was reported as being viewed as ‘steering and integrating activities’ (Lock 1996), and ‘the division and management of activities’ (Perrin 1997). Further- more, Fayol (1949) viewed an aspect of coordination as the laying out of the timing and sequencing of activities such they could be carried out in an orderly fashion. In agreement with these perceptions, Kleinman (1990) viewed ‘the division and allo- cation of tasks’ as an aspect of coordination, and Duffy et al. (1994) described the planning and control of activities as being central to design coordination. In addition, Decker and Lesser (1995) indicated that, in many application areas, individuals are responsible for deciding what order tasks should be done and when to do them. Engineering management: operational design coordination 439 member, taking into account the available resources and knowledge of their roles and effects, that enables a measured reduction in the duration of those activities to be achieved’. Monitoring was previously discussed in the context of plans and schedules (Duffy et al. 1993, Thrampoulidis et al. 1997, Bendeck et al. 1998). The requirement for monitoring exists since ‘the design of complex products involves the co-ordinated organisation of multi-disciplinary groups, activities and information which continu- ally evolve and change during the design process’ (Andreasen et al. 1996, Duffy 1998). Thus, monitoring is thought of as facilitating the detection of change such that, if appropriate, corrective action may be taken by performing re-scheduling. Distributed computing systems need resource management capabilities that can allocate resources to applications, monitor and control the use of resources, and re-allocate resources due to anomalies (Davis and Sydir 1996). Thus, a need was ident- ified for research to develop new techniques that will manage resources in a uniform and coordinated way within a dynamic environment. Kim and Lilja (1998) recognized that while resource scheduling has been the focus of much research over recent years, moni- toring has been largely neglected. Musliner et al. (1991) also recognized the need to be able to detect and recover from discrepancies between the expected state and actual state during execution. Indeed, Ranganathan et al. (1996) indicated that deciding which resource to run particular applications can be based on monitoring variations in network characteristics. Nguyen et al. (1996) indicated that despite the inherent inaccuracies of runtime measurements, and the added overhead of more frequent re-allocations, schedulers using them can significantly out-perform those that do not. In addition, Garvey and Lesser (1994) consideredmonitoring as almost always providing a reduction inmissed deadlines. A concern voiced byWolski (1997) was that monitoring should be non-intrusive (i.e. should not compromise performance). 5. Conclusion Effective engineering management is acknowledged as a means for contemporary engineering organizations to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage in an increasingly aggressive global market. The need to increase the competitiveness of organizations has resulted in the proliferation of a variety of approaches to engineering management. Furthermore, previously regarded as a ubiquitous characteristic of a number of approaches, coordination has been identified as important and pervasive; however, it was shown that currently there exists a broad and varied understanding. As such, the nature of operational design coordination has been discussed in sections 4.1–4.5, resulting in its key elements being identified as: . Coherence—integrating, or linking together, resource effort and tasks within an organization in a harmonious manner to avoid chaos. . Communication—interaction involving the exchange of structured and mean- ingful data, information and knowledge. . Task management—the organization and control of tasks, and the dependencies between them, such that they can be undertaken and completed in a structured manner. . Schedule management—managing the planning and dynamic assignment of tasks to resources, and the enactment of the resulting schedules, throughout a changeable design development process. 442 G. Coates et al. . Resource management—organizing and controlling resources to enable their continuous optimized utilization throughout a changeable design development process. With regard to the key elements of schedule management and resource management, it has been recognized that engineering design is changeable due to the evolution of the multi-disciplinary groups, activities and information involved (Andreasen et al. 1996, Duffy 1998). Thus, a further key element of operational design coordination is identified as: . Real-time support—how to manage and adapt to a changeable (i.e. dynamic and unpredictable) design development process. Knowledge of these key elements provides the foundation for an approach to opera- tional design coordination. The development of an approach that includes these key elements, by integrating the appropriate techniques, aims to provide a more compre- hensive and improved approach to engineering management than currently exists. 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