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5

COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE

As shown in Table 1, the communications and information infrastructure of an agile enterprise
differs greatly from that of traditional enterprises. “Virtual Corporations” (Nagel
and Dove, 1992) and availability of electronic data communications lead to coworkers
collaborating from geographically dispersed locations. Concurrent engineering within a
fast-paced product development environment favors collaborative work between engineering
disciplines over “meet and disperse” work patterns (Forsythe and Grose, in press).
Emphasis is placed on seamless and direct information flows. With agility, many of the
traditional bottlenecks that provided time buffers to the product development process are
no longer present, due to automation and streamlining. Consequently, changes to product
and related artifacts occur much faster, leading to increased demands for information and
product data management. Finally, as enterprises focus on core competencies and opportunistically
enter Virtual Corporations, it is no longer practical to maintain and rely on
internal sources of information. Instead, the need arises for mechanisms that enable the
accessibility and efficient utilization of diverse, external sources of information.

TABLE 1.

General Differences Between Traditional and Agile Enterprises

Traditional Enterprise

Agile Enterprise

• Geographical colocation • Geographical separation
• Solitary work • Collaborative work
• Sequential information flow • Parallel information flow
• Time is negotiable • Time is critical
• Standardization of technology • Opportunistic technology use
• Artifacts relatively static • Artifacts change rapidly
• Information flow correlated with
organizational structure
• Information flow correlated with
project structure
• Extensive use of hard media • Extensive use of electronic media
• Constant, known, internal sources
of information
• Diverse, often unknown, external
sources of information
• Many indirect lines of communication • Mostly direct lines of communication

5.1

Electronic Data Communications

Agility introduces a dynamic, fast-paced environment that requires extensive collaboration
between widely dispersed team members who must work together with an efficiency
comparable to their being located in the same building, if not the same room (Virtual
Colocation). In the development of an agile product realization process for custom electromechanical
devices, information flow requirements for an agile enterprise have been
analyzed (Forsythe and Ashby, 1994). This analysis provided an understanding of the
roles filled by each participant in the enterprise, their information needs and sources, the
timing of information needs and information availability, and restrictions on the ability of
participants to use information once it had been received.
The information flow analysis followed the sequence illustrated in Figure 1. In the first step, team members were surveyed to determine their information needs. Before this survey
could take place, measures were necessary to heighten team member’s awareness of
their information needs. This was accomplished through a series of team meetings during
which the team jointly developed the project plan, including objectives, strategies for
meeting objectives, a detailed task network, schedule, and resource and funding projections.
Initially, team members completed paper surveys describing their roles and activities,
followed by in-depth interviews utilizing techniques from information requirements
analysis. Based on the information needs survey, the seven categories of information exchange
shown in Table 2 were developed. Subsequently, a matrix was developed showing
the information exchange categories relevant to each pair of team members.

To allocate technologies to various modes of information exchange, it was necessary to
develop functional requirements for each category of information exchange. The nature
of these requirements is illustrated by the following example of functional requirements
identified for the General Knowledge or Requests category:

TABLE 2.

Categories of Information Exchange

General Knowledge or Requests Transfer of Work/General Level of Skill
Meetings and events Documents
Memos and letters Figures and tables
Schedules Presentation graphics
Agendas Spreadsheets
Forms (surveys, progress reports) Project management materials
News, reports and announcements (e.g., PERT charts, Gantt charts)
Policies
Requests for information Collaborative Work
General Information (e.g., phone lists) Design and design analysis
Brainstorming
Person-to-Person Discourse Group planning
Communications requiring unequivocal Process documentation
and immediate confirmation or response Computer code development
Communications where a need exists to Document and presentation development
assure understanding of information content Project management
Communications in which a spontaneous
dialogue is essential Urgent Communications
Communications where concern exists Changes in schedules or availabilities
for emotional connotations or responses Meetings
Communications where socialization is Demonstrations
part of the implicit or explicit intent Important visitors
Demonstrations and tours Events, cccurrences, or other situations
Team building Requests for information
Transfer of Work/Specialized Level of Skill Casual or Informal Communications
CAD, CAM and solid model files Lunch or hallway discussions
Computer code Casual exchanges before and after meetings
Numerical control programs Discussions to break-up work sessions
FYI conversations
Authorized Gateway Customer Bull sessions

• It should be relatively easy (a few simple steps in addition to creating the message)
to transmit the message to every intended recipient.
• After receiving the message, each recipient should have a clear understanding of
what action is expected on their part and any needed details regarding how to accomplish
this action (e.g., meeting place and time.
• Given the occasional urgency of this type of communication, messages should be
available to recipients almost immediately following transmission and some mechanism
should be provided to alert recipients of the presence of the message.
• Most often the message content may be readily captured verbally or with alphanumeric
characters; however, there may occasionally be a need to include limited tables
or figures (e.g., maps, calendars, charts, etc.).

Alternative technologies were identified and assessed relative to the functional requirements
of each category. Based on these assessments, technology solutions for each information
exchange category were developed. These solutions were then incorporated into a
communications infrastructure design, which allocated technologies to meet the needs of
each team member. This infrastructure included e-mail, voice-mail, file sharing, product
data management, and collaborative work tools.Aproject-wide infrastructure was implemented
through these technologies, the success of which was demonstrated by the design
and production of custom, precision, electromechanical devices in 24 days or less (Forsythe
et al., 1995).

Technology deployed for virtual colocation may include client-server networks, e-mail,
a web-based intranet, collaborative work tools such as X-windows applications sharing,
and an enterprise-wide product data manager (PDM). However, for virtual colocation, it
is essential that team members have a sufficient personal acquaintanceship to enable free
exchanges, despite the unfamiliarity of the new technologies. The technologies alone are
not sufficient to achieve the desired communications efficiency and, if anything, the unfamiliarity
of the technologies could impede communication efficiency. To overcome these
factors, two strategies were adopted. First, various mechanisms were employed to allow
team members to meet face-to-face and establish personal familiarity (e.g., team training
and project planning), and later, to sustain familiarity throughout the course of the project
(e.g., monthly all-hands meetings, weekly lunches, social events). It may be noted that
these efforts occurred mostly during the early stages of team development, when team
members were first getting to know each other, and roles, responsibilities, and work processes
had not been fully defined. Sustainment required considerably less attention once
a general familiarity had developed and work had become well focused. Secondly, time
and resources were devoted to assure team members received the personal attention necessary
for their acceptance of the new technologies and technology support was readily
available throughout the duration of the project so that technology rejection did not occur
following either technical problems or difficulties experienced by users.