Pavan Kumar Sriram

A Concept for Project Manufacturing Planning and Control for Engineer-to-Order Companies

Engineer-to-order products are customized to a particular client’s specification. Planning can be a problem as the products may be large and complex especially due to uncertainties in the duration of the operations. A conceptual project manufacturing planning and control (PMPC) framework is presented in relation to typical engineer to order (ETO) companies. The existing approaches, problems, solutions, and limitations of current manufacturing planning and control (MPC) for ETO environment are discussed. This paper contributes to the development of an improved understanding and more robust definition of MPC in ETO industries, and highlights how the key challenges and the opportunities that PMPC offer in an ETO sector.

“The Fast and the Fantastic” Time-Cost Trade-Offs in New Product Development vs. Construction Projects

Today, in new product development projects, “NPDs”, time is the cutting edge. The time to market in new product development projects is a key factor in the competition between innovative companies. Research has shown that time can be managed, and speed too. Our concern in this paper is to study the time factor in the case of new product development projects based on a time-cost trade-off curve, which is important for the project success by delivering the product as fast as possible. We will explain the motivation behind delivering fast in NPD projects. In construction projects, a customer initially contracts for a project from a contractor based on specifications, budget and delay. Time to market is a key success factor in new product development projects. Does time to delivery have high importance in construction projects? We conclude by showing the significance of NPD projects’ speed with respect to management in construction projects.

Understanding Key Engineering Changes for Materials Management in ETO Environment

Researchers have recognized engineering changes affecting operations as a major obstacle to the delivery of the product in ETO environment. However, there is little academic literature addressing sources of engineering changes that affect materials management throughout the order fulfillment process in an ETO environment. The key research question addressed in this paper is how the substantive sources of engineering changes impact materials in ETO environment can be identified and categorized. Due to the nature of different supply chain configurations different engineering change situations exists within and across these companies.

Designing a Performance Measurement System for Materials Management Under Engineering Change Situations in ETO Environment

In this study we aim to understand how performance indicators should be designed and implemented across various phases and levels in materials management in the order fulfilment process under engineering changes. The paper address questions such as how can such systems help managers to handle and manage materials management under engineering change situations? How do we convince potential users and obtain their support when starting to develop such a system? How can we aggregate performance indicators? How do we present results? Then using the literature review and the results of the empirical study from a Norwegian company operating in ETO product delivery strategy, we develop a framework.

Capability Maturity Model Integrated for Ship Design and Construction

Project constraints are continuously growing in terms of time, cost, customer satisfaction, return on investment, quality. And also they are growing in terms of complexity, number of stakeholders, number of parameters to manage and number of interactions between these parameters. In this paper, we carry out literature study on capability maturity model integrated (CMMI) for Ship Design and Construction. The purpose is to understand, demonstrate and develop a structure for CMMI in Ship Design and Construction. Capability maturity models offer companies a simple but effective tool to organize, control and monitoring their processes. Emerged out of software engineering, the application fields have widened and maturity model research is becoming more important. So far, few limited studies exits on applicability of capability maturity models for Ship Design and Construction. The developed structure can be used as a structured matrix to assess the maturity levels of the company through measurable stages. In addition, the structured matrix can be used to assess and improve individual companies involved in the ship design and construction process, for example a yard and assess various value chain configurations, i.e., alternative configurations of actors to be performing a planned ship design and construction project.

A Collaborative Planning, Information and Decision Support System

In this paper, we discuss the importance of collaborative planning for manufacturing enterprises. We have analysed user stories provided by industry to understand the collaborative processes in their workplaces and their needs for Information Systems (IS) support. Based on the analysis of the user stories, we have proposed a framework for collaborative planning and ideas for the design of IS supporting this activity. These will be used to conduct focussed interviews with the users to refine our design before implementing the system.

A Collaborative Enterprise Framework to Support Engineering Changes in Manufacturing Planning and Control

Abstract The main challenges for the enterprises are complexity of the products and uncertainty of the processes. This challenge involves engineering change that frequently requires redesign or altering the products which may call for enterprise agility and flexibility. To meet such a requirement, enterprises require better tools for resilient manufacturing planning and control, and execution. Due to the limitations of the enterprise resource planning (ERP), there is a question how would the future enterprise systems will look like. To approach an answer to this question, this research paper provides an analysis of engineering changes, its characteristics, problems and their implications. Against the background, a conception of future collaborative enterprise model (CoPIDSS: Collaborative planning, information and decision support system) is proposed. In this paper, we discuss the importance of collaborative planning for enterprise resilient manufacturing planning and control. We have analysed user stories provided by industry as scenarios, to understand the collaborative processes in their workplaces and their needs for collaborative platform support. This paper aims to address the following research questions: How does engineering changes and error handling affect the degree of collaboration and decision making within and across enterprises and how CoPDISS helps to overcome this? Is the storage and management of knowledge the one of the key factor to engineering changes and error handling control in a collaboration and decision environment?

RFID Integration for Material Management Considering Engineering Changes in ETO Industry

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a type of auto-identification technique developed in 1950s. However, its wide applications in manufacturing industries does not start until early 2000s. Discussions about applications of RFID in Engineer to Order (ETO) industry have been raised since mid-2000s. Over a decade’s technical development, it is becoming a common view that RFID is an important part of Cyber Physical Systems, Internet of Things, or Industry 4.0. Although researchers have started discussion about RFID applications in ETO industry, it is not well addressed that how RFID can be applied for the material management with respect to engineering changes (ECs), which has strong impacts on an ETO company. This paper reviews RFID applications in ETO industry and gives suggestions on how an RFID system can be integrated in an ETO company? How has RFID been utilized for material management under engineering changes? And what is the general framework of RFID in material management in ETO industry?

Remanufacturing as a Sustainable Strategy in Shipbuilding Industry

Shipbuilding industry in Norway, mainly operating in the Engineer-to-order environment, is one of the most innovative in the world in terms of technology and production methods. In this paper we investigate the applicability of the concept of remanufacturing in the shipbuilding industry. The research takes a case study approach to study the topic and also presents an overview of the existing literature on remanufacturing and its benefits for businesses and environment. A five stage framework is proposed for integrating the concept of remanufacturing into the strategic decision making process in shipbuilding companies. This framework would streamline the decision making process of shipbuilding companies entering the vessel remanufacturing business.

Taxonomy of Engineer-To-Order Companies

In this paper taxonomy has been developed to classify the different forms of ETO firms to enable a like-with-like comparison, arguing that existing taxonomies within the literature are inadequate for production planning and control research purposes. Successful production planning and control concepts from high volume, low variety producers cannot be directly applied, because of the unique nature of ETO products. Secondly through synthesis of the literature and the analysis of the three case studies we describe and examine the production planning and control activities characteristics of the ETO environment to distinguish the different environment within ETO production.