Asbjørn Rolstadås

Enterprise performance measurement

The future trends with respect to globalisation, customer orientation, process orientation, and high productivity have led to increased focus on productivity and enterprise competitiveness. In order to improve competitiveness, it is necessary to measure performance. The classical approach to this is to apply the Sink and Tuttle model describing seven performance criteria. A more modern approach has been advised by the TOPP program. TOPP measures performance along three dimensions: efficiency, effectiveness and adaptability. TOPP uses questionnaires to collect data. Another approach is applied in the EU ENAPS project where the goal is to build a European benchmarking database. ENAPS provides a set of tools to a number of agents actually doing the benchmarks. Performance measurement requires an enterprise model. The EU FOF project developed such a model. This was further developed by TOPP and then further refined in ENAPS.

Global education in manufacturing strategy

Since the onset of the global economic crisis, manufacturing organizations in developed economies such as Europe, Japan and the United States are in the process of transition. This transition is made even more marked with the economic downturn taking place across the world. There is a strong movement of cost based manufacturing to offshore and low wage economies. The remaining onshore manufacturing activities now focus on innovative new processes and exceptional customer service. The technology and processes required for onshore manufacturing can be complex and challenges the existing skills of engineers and managers to continuously operate and change such systems. Educational bodies struggle to keep up to date. The pace of change has meant that curricula in universities are frequently out of date and the skills of teachers, researchers and even some professors are out of touch with reality. These and other issues were discussed recently by leading experts from academia and industry from around the world. Their deliberations coupled with a number of related sources of documented research are presented in this paper. The main findings reiterate that high-tech manufacturing will continue to be a major player in the landscape of developed economies but that the research thrusts and skill sets of young engineers and how they receive these skills will need to change. The paper provides a number of suggestions for strategic change to research and education in manufacturing in the future.

Categorizing risks in seven large projects—Which risks do the projects focus on?†

In a hierarchy of project objectives, strategic objectives will often be principally different from the operational ones. Operational objectives concern the project outputs/results, and strategic objectives concern the project goal and purpose. In this study, risks are categorized as risks to operational, long-term, or short-term strategic objectives, and, by studying a dataset of some 1,450 risk elements that make up the risk registers of seven large projects, we examine how operational and strategic risks are distributed in the projects. The study strongly indicates that risks to a projects strategic objectives rarely occur in the projects risk registers, though project success and failure stories indicate their importance.

Knowledge and manufacturing strategy–how different manufacturing paradigms have different requirements to knowledge. Examples from the automotive industry

In this paper we aim to give insight to how manufacturing strategies, represented by manufacturing paradigms are linked to different approaches to knowledge. Strategies are closely related to the development of core competence and how to deal with knowledge in general. In this paper we focus on how the different manufacturing strategies represent different challenges when it comes to knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. Our discussion has references to suppliers in the automotive industry, represented by a Scandinavian case. In this case the focus is on lean principles, which in contrast to mass manufacturing, represents attention to the synthetic knowledge base and tacit knowledge. Mass manufacturing, which is also still relevant in the automotive industry, is more centralised in its approach to knowledge and is focusing more on the analytical knowledge base and explicit knowledge. Knowledge should be a central part of companies’ strategies, also functional such as within manufacturing, and should cover issues such as: what is crucial knowledge, how do we create it, and how to transfer it to meet our overall company goals?

How Project Manager–Project Owner Interaction Can Work Within and Influence Project Risk Management

Inherent interest conflicts between a project management team and project owner are often neglected in project risk management. Risk management by the project management team basically focuses on project short-term survival, or project success toward handover to the customer, while for the project owner, strategic success should be more important. To see how this takes place in and influences real projects, seven large projects were studied, and interaction in project risk management between the project owners and project management team was examined for each project. The study revealed that the main focus in the studied projects was on operational risks, even within the project owners set of high-priority risks.

Understanding project success through analysis of project management approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that project success is dependent on the project management approach selected, relative to the challenges posed by the project, and to develop an analytical model for analyzing the performance of the project organization. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on literature review, model development, interviews, and case studies. Findings – The findings define two different approaches in project management: The prescriptive approach focusses on the formal qualities of the project organization, including governing documentation and procedures. The adaptive approach focusses on the process of developing and improving a project organization, project culture and team commitment. The two approaches have been identified through studies of three different case projects. An analytical model, referred to as the Pentagon model, has been applied for analyzing the performance of the project organization and explaining the project management approach. The mod...

Planning and control of concurrent engineering projects

The engineering process provides technical documents. It can be modeled by extending the Walrasian model. Concurrent engineering involves shortening of lead time and life cycle engineering. Shortening of lead time can be done by choosing an uncertainty level and using an iterative algorithm to determine optimal concurrency. Cost uncertainty can be included by adding contingency. Cost and time uncertainty in a project can be catered for by providing risk buffers.

The use of performance measurement as a basis for project control of offshore modification oil and gas projects

The methods presented in this article are based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of close-out data drawn from a portfolio of 38 modification projects. The primary premise is that modification projects are intrinsically subject to quantity and complexity growth during the course of detailed engineering as a consequence of the indeterminate interface with the existing facility. The normative project control routines need to be supplemented by material take-offs-based weight monitoring as a basis for re-estimation and re-calibration of the project baselines as detailed engineering proceeds in order to mitigate this uncertainty as early as possible. Similarly, estimating needs to be based on norms drawn from performance measurement of modification work rather than extrapolations from greenfield projects, particularly the work performed on the platforms. This article presents a portfolio of project control methods based on the performance measurement principle covering the short term of single projects as well as the longer term multi-project perspective.

Managing organizational challenges in global projects

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to complement the research that has been done in global projects so far and has two objectives: to study organizational challenges in global projects, compared with those of traditional projects; and to define and analyze the main organizational challenges the project team members and project managers meet when assigned to global projects. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a survey sent to 550 project managers and people working in a global environment, data from 246 respondents, and 30 interviews with senior project team members. Findings – The results show that the main organizational challenges are managing the external stakeholders in the global project; the local government in the country, local content demand, local authorities, local industry, and lack of support from the base organization and management. One of the conclusions is that companies need a relationship management approach to managing these challenges in global projects. Origin...

The Innovation Process

Continuous improvement and incremental change is not enough—companies also need to be part of major changes or radical and disruptive innovation. Innovation is necessary in all organizations in order to maintain or improve competitive position. Innovation is no less important in manufacturing than in any other section of industry. The ‘Oslo Manual’ defines innovation as, “… the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations”. Radical innovation is about making major change and we can visualise it as a ‘step change’ in some measure of performance such as revenue or efficiency. A high level of risk is not possible for many companies who prefer instead to invest in incremental innovation or continuous small changes to their products, processes and services. Incremental innovation is supported in manufacturing by initiatives such as the Plan Do Check Act cycle and ‘Lean Manufacturing’. Most manufacturing organisations need to consider both radical and incremental innovations. Manufacturing paradigms have inherent principles and guidelines for the development of innovation processes. Projects and project models are essential for building an efficient innovation 20 process.