A PREDICTIVE MODEL FOR THE SUCCESSFUL INTEGRATION OF CONCURRENT ENGINEERING WITH PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONAL-FACTORS - BASED ON DATA OF 25 COMPANIES

Manufacturers that use concurrent engineering perform the design of the product and process in parallel and may utilize teams as the primary work group. In order to implement concurrent engineering, manufacturers have relied on a variety of new technologies. In this paper, it is proposed that models developed for the effective management of technological and organizational change could be effectively used to predict the levels of success of the organization attributed to concurrent engineering. An integrated model was developed that considers the human and organizational variables that are thought to be important when implementing a new technology. A questionnaire was developed and administered at 25 manufacturing companies. Results provide a reliable and valid model whereby time spent by management in determining task, work structure, and technology implementation accounts for 46.7% of the variance attributed to the effectiveness of organizations. (C) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.