Why design matters? Making the case for the smaller companies in the automotive industry

This research focuses on industrial design and strategic management and more specifically on the way the development of design capabilities can influence the strategic product market position of the Portuguese small and medium supply companies for the automotive industry. Industrial design is not usually highlighted as a cornerstone skill of most small-scale automotive supply companies. Instead, it is usually established as a process in resource-capability combinations due to the highly dynamic environments that characterize this industry. Practice suggests a double bias either in the definition of design, sometimes emphasized as style and associated with carmakers, or in design’s role in developing the position of small and medium enterprises in supply networks. This line of reasoning supports the lead research question: why design matters for smaller companies in the automotive industry? The theoretical constructs and context field supported through the literature and the automotive industry profile (international and Portuguese) review reveal a research procedure supported on an interdisciplinary work process. The exploratory nature of this study calls for a qualitative type of research to be conducted as the use of case studies is the most appropriate research strategy. Three firms from the Portuguese automotive cluster were selected for the case study representing an appropriate automotive industry supplier sample for cross-case analysis. The analysis of the gathered data required three phases: analysis and report of individual cases; analysis and report of cross cases; and the conclusions and implications of the cross cases for both theory and practice. As a result, it is revealed the importance of the development of design capabilities for a determined business strategy. The development of design capabilities is key for the development of high added value products for the supply of complex parts or modules. Hence, a list of suggested positive and negative industrial design practices are proposed

Falling behind or catching up? Developing countries in the era of globalization

Globalization improves the prospects for developing countries (DCs) to catch up economically with industrialized countries. But not all DCs will automatically benefit from globalization. Some DCs even face the risk of being delinked from the international division of labor. Differences in DC economic policies ultimately determine whether there will be a deepening divide between rich and poor countries in the world economy. Many observers draw an overly pessimistic picture of the perspectives of DCs in the era of globalization because of missing institutionalized links to regional integration schemes in Europe and North America, a low level of interfirm technology cooperation between industrialized countries and DCs, and a high concentration of foreign direct investment (FDD flows on only a few DC hosts. However, such concerns are largely unfounded: Asian DCs are most successful in globalization although they have remained outside institutionalized integration schemes, while ACP countries have not made much progress despite their preferential access to EU markets. Technology transfers between industrialized countries and DCs mainly occur through FDI and trade in capital goods, rather than through interfirm technology cooperation. Recent trends in FDI and international trade strongly support the proposition that DCs have become closely integrated into globalization strategies. A high concentration of FDI flows on a few DC hosts does not imply that new attractive locations cannot compete for international capital. Admittedly, it is true that between two thirds and three quarters of total FDI flows to DCs have persistently been absorbed by ten host economies. But the country composition of this group has changed over time. Globalization implies an increase in international investment cooperation. Case studies for selected DC industries show that FDI prevails in industries applying sophisticated technologies, whereas licensing and subcontracting are favored when production processes are standardized. Policy interventions may limit the choices open to investing foreign firms and, thereby, cause substitution effects between different forms of globalization or hinder globalization at all. The quality of DC economic policies determines whether these countries will succeed in joining the globalization club. The experience of the frontrunners among DCs suggests some basic policy conclusions: Openness towards world markets is a precondition for becoming involved in globalization strategies of transnational corporations. Liberalizing all forms of international investment cooperation and removing barriers to international trade should rank high on the policy agenda of DCs. Under conditions of globalized production, DC governments are increasingly constrained in pursuing policies of their own liking. Those DCs characterized by pronounced macroeconomic instability are relatively unattractive locations for international investors. Investment in physical and human capital plays a crucial role in enabling DCs to participate in globalization. Economic policies that discourage domestic saving and investment must be avoided. Financial market reforms are needed in DCs characterized by financial repression and inefficient intermediation between savers and investors. A better education of the workforce is required for a successful application of new technologies that become available through globalization. --

An ever-winding stream : (re)surfacing competing for advantage from the continuous entwinement of navigation and wayfinding

Error on title page – year of award is 2023.This research is a strategy coup de grâce. It has helped mend deeply-rooted, intuitive, in situ sponte sua beliefs about the nature of strategy’s river-flow—echoed from a minuscule, scarcely-inhabited river-cave of the strategy field-flow—with its actual unfolding in real, earth-bound organisational settings. In a nutshell, the research charted the until-now uncharted becoming of competing for advantage. For what Sheryl Crow sings in her immensely popular ‘Everyday is a winding road’ is simply the sentiment Bob Dylan so effectively describes ‘Like a rolling stone’ in a way that completely resonates with what the Beatles had sung even before in their ‘Long and winding road’. Namely, that strategy is wayfaring, meandering, and forever oblique. And hence, strategy is not either linear or curve, but both linear and curve. Deliberate and emergent. Content and process. Planning and wayfinding, in a universal, uninterrupted coping, which echoes ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men’ (Burns, 1785, added emphasis) so beautifully captured in the evocative poetics of Scotland’s national bard. Over a 9-month immersion during most of 2018, in an automotive manufacturing site in the outskirts of Glasgow’s Green-Glen, the research amassed a comprehensive volume of data anchorings following a ‘near documentary’ style of inquiry (Chia and Holt, 2009). A wayfinding methodology-of-sorts emerged, which included extensive field note-makings, reflecting-in-action, photographic animations, and annotated information supported by news articles, company records, semi-formal interviews, live off-the-cuff conversations, shadowing-in-observation, and attendance of both formal, fixed meetings, and informal, impromptu coming-together gatherings. Analysis followed to reconstruct the river-flow of the case-streams. Namely, the metamorphosis of Rosti Automotive Larkhall (RAL), from being a general plastic injection moulder, to becoming a tier 1 automotive supplier, in the period covering 2016-2018. Overarchingly, the research crystalizes a triple-win of exciting possibilities for the field of strategic management and the social sciences more broadly. Namely, (i) a tried-and-tested wayfinding-process philosophical-methodology focused on explicating the dynamics of processes-in-motion; (ii) a fresh reconceptualization of a central construct—the central construct, perhaps—of the strategy field, competitive advantage, towards a forever becoming-idea—the primordial hunch of strategy—competing for advantage; and (iii) this new conceptualisation is born out of the two most basic motions—currents—of the competing river-flow: competere and concurrere, from which concurrere emerges as the vital traversing of strategy, its wayfinding and zero-degree of organisation (Chia and Holt, 2009; Cooper 1986: 321).This research is a strategy coup de grâce. It has helped mend deeply-rooted, intuitive, in situ sponte sua beliefs about the nature of strategy’s river-flow—echoed from a minuscule, scarcely-inhabited river-cave of the strategy field-flow—with its actual unfolding in real, earth-bound organisational settings. In a nutshell, the research charted the until-now uncharted becoming of competing for advantage. For what Sheryl Crow sings in her immensely popular ‘Everyday is a winding road’ is simply the sentiment Bob Dylan so effectively describes ‘Like a rolling stone’ in a way that completely resonates with what the Beatles had sung even before in their ‘Long and winding road’. Namely, that strategy is wayfaring, meandering, and forever oblique. And hence, strategy is not either linear or curve, but both linear and curve. Deliberate and emergent. Content and process. Planning and wayfinding, in a universal, uninterrupted coping, which echoes ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men’ (Burns, 1785, added emphasis) so beautifully captured in the evocative poetics of Scotland’s national bard. Over a 9-month immersion during most of 2018, in an automotive manufacturing site in the outskirts of Glasgow’s Green-Glen, the research amassed a comprehensive volume of data anchorings following a ‘near documentary’ style of inquiry (Chia and Holt, 2009). A wayfinding methodology-of-sorts emerged, which included extensive field note-makings, reflecting-in-action, photographic animations, and annotated information supported by news articles, company records, semi-formal interviews, live off-the-cuff conversations, shadowing-in-observation, and attendance of both formal, fixed meetings, and informal, impromptu coming-together gatherings. Analysis followed to reconstruct the river-flow of the case-streams. Namely, the metamorphosis of Rosti Automotive Larkhall (RAL), from being a general plastic injection moulder, to becoming a tier 1 automotive supplier, in the period covering 2016-2018. Overarchingly, the research crystalizes a triple-win of exciting possibilities for the field of strategic management and the social sciences more broadly. Namely, (i) a tried-and-tested wayfinding-process philosophical-methodology focused on explicating the dynamics of processes-in-motion; (ii) a fresh reconceptualization of a central construct—the central construct, perhaps—of the strategy field, competitive advantage, towards a forever becoming-idea—the primordial hunch of strategy—competing for advantage; and (iii) this new conceptualisation is born out of the two most basic motions—currents—of the competing river-flow: competere and concurrere, from which concurrere emerges as the vital traversing of strategy, its wayfinding and zero-degree of organisation (Chia and Holt, 2009; Cooper 1986: 321)

Industrialising Software Development in Systems Integration

Compared to other disciplines, software engineering as of today is still dependent on craftsmanship of highly-skilled workers. However, with constantly increasing complexity and efforts, existing software engineering approaches appear more and more inefficient. A paradigm shift towards industrial production methods seems inevitable. Recent advances in academia and practice have lead to the availability of industrial key principles in software development as well. Specialization is represented in software product lines, standardization and systematic reuse are available with component-based development, and automation has become accessible through model-driven engineering. While each of the above is well researched in theory, only few cases of successful implementation in the industry are known. This becomes even more evident in specialized areas of software engineering such as systems integration. Today’s IT systems need to quickly adapt to new business requirements due to mergers and acquisitions and cooperations between enterprises. This certainly leads to integration efforts, i.e. joining different subsystems into a cohesive whole in order to provide new functionality. In such an environment. the application of industrial methods for software development seems even more important. Unfortunately, software development in this field is a highly complex and heterogeneous undertaking, as IT environments differ from customer to customer. In such settings, existing industrialization concepts would never break even due to one-time projects and thus insufficient economies of scale and scope. This present thesis, therefore, describes a novel approach for a more efficient implementation of prior key principles while considering the characteristics of software development for systems integration. After identifying the characteristics of the field and their affects on currently-known industrialization concepts, an organizational model for industrialized systems integration has thus been developed. It takes software product lines and adapts them in a way feasible for a systems integrator active in several business domains. The result is a three-tiered model consolidating recurring activities and reducing the efforts for individual product lines. For the implementation of component-based development, the present thesis assesses current component approaches and applies an integration metamodel to the most suitable one. This ensures a common understanding of systems integration across different product lines and thus alleviates component reuse, even across product line boundaries. The approach is furthermore aligned with the organizational model to depict in which way component-based development may be applied in industrialized systems integration. Automating software development in systems integration with model-driven engineering was found to be insufficient in its current state. The reason herefore lies in insufficient tool chains and a lack of modelling standards. As an alternative, an XML-based configuration of products within a software product line has been developed. It models a product line and its products with the help of a domain-specific language and utilizes stylesheet transformations to generate compliable artefacts. The approach has been tested for its feasibility within an exemplarily implementation following a real-world scenario. As not all aspects of industrialized systems integration could be simulated in a laboratory environment, the concept was furthermore validated during several expert interviews with industry representatives. Here, it was also possible to assess cultural and economic aspects. The thesis concludes with a detailed summary of the contributions to the field and suggests further areas of research in the context of industrialized systems integration

Business relationships in the automotive and component industries in Portugal

Partnering has been the most commonly used term to describe collaboration between a buyer and its direct supplier. The automotive industry has been the basis for the development of most studies on the subject. Despite the many studies on partnering, some people share the view that largely missing from the literature is a clear definition of this concept and of how it operates within dyadic (i.e. between a buyer and its direct suppliers), network and firm contexts. This is found to be particularly important if automotive companies geographically spread in the globe are to be properly managed. The purpose of the research presented in this thesis was to explore inter-firm collaboration and partnering between a subsidiary of a motor vehicle manufacturer and its direct suppliers, taking into account the ownership ties of firms, such as those of multinational corporations (MNCs). The objective was to generate new knowledge on how inter-firm collaboration and partnering operate and on the factors that influence the business relationships that are established between the referred companies. The researcher followed a single case study research strategy in order to develop a new and empirically grounded understanding, while favouring contextualisation and complexity. The researcher adopted a triangulated research design in which quantitative and qualitative data were gathered in two stages, through a self-administered mailed questionnaire and in-depth interviews, respectively. The findings suggest that: (a) relationships can be characterised by several dimensions, (i.e. commitment, trust, win-win, long-term orientation, co-ordination, joint problem solving, flexibility, mutual dependence) each of which is a mix of collaborative and non-collaborative elements; (b) a diversified scenario of relationships can be explained by the different combinations of several contextual factors (i.e. organisational, relational, spatial and network); the importance of each needs to be weighted and hierarchised; (c) the network affects both to enable and constrain the freedom of action at the level of the customer supplier dyad; and (d) partnering is contingent on the position, role and influence at different points in the network. The research argues that relationship management can be enhanced through the application of analytical tools to the assessment of business relationships. New frameworks for analysis are presented as significant contributions to knowledge, among a series of theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions. The researcher suggests directions for research which will further enhance the understanding of inter-firm collaboration and partnering and business relationships within a multinational network context

Abordagem de Anotações para o Suporte da Gestão Energética de Software em Modelos AMALTHEA

The automotive industry is continuously introducing innovative software features to provide more efficient, safe, and comfortable solutions. Despite the several benefits to the consumer, the evolution of automotive software is also reflected in several challenges, presenting a growing complexity that hinders its development and integration. The adoption of standards and appropriate development methods becomes essential to meet the requirements of the industry. Furthermore, the expansion of automotive software systems is also driving a considerable growth in the number of electronic components installed in a vehicle, which has a significant impact on the electric energy consumption. Thus, the focus on non-functional energy requirements has become increasingly important. This work presents a study focused on the evolution of automotive software considering the development standards, methodologies, as well as approaches for energy requirements management. We propose an automatic and self-contained approach for the support of energy properties management, adopting the model-based open-source framework AMALTHEA. From the analysis of execution or simulation traces, the energy consumption estimation is provided at a fine-grained level and annotated in AMALTHEA models. Thus, we enable the energy analysis and management of the system throughout the entire lifecycle. Additionally, this solution is in line with the AUTOSAR Adaptive standard, allowing the development of energy management strategies for automatic, dynamic, and adaptive systems.A indústria automotiva encontra-se constantemente a introduzir funcionalidades inovadoras através de software, para oferecer soluções mais eficientes, seguras e confortáveis. Apesar dos diversos benefícios para o consumidor, a evolução do software automóvel também se reflete em diversos desafios, apresentando uma crescente complexidade que dificulta o seu desenvolvimento e integração. Desta forma, a adoção de normas e metodologias adequadas para o seu desenvolvimento torna-se essencial para cumprir os requisitos do setor. Adicionalmente, esta expansão das funcionalidades suportadas por software é fonte de um aumento considerável do número de componentes eletrónicos instalados em automóveis. Consequentemente, existe um impacto significativo no consumo de energia elétrica dos sistemas automóveis, sendo cada vez mais relevante o foco nos requisitos não-funcionais deste domínio. Este trabalho apresenta um estudo focado na evolução do software automotivo tendo em conta os padrões e metodologias de desenvolvimento desta área, bem como abordagens para a gestão de requisitos de energia. Através da adoção da ferramenta AMALTHEA, uma plataforma open-source de desenvolvimento baseado em modelos, é proposta uma abordagem automática e independente para a análise de propriedades energéticas. A partir da análise de traços de execução ou de simulação, é produzida uma estimativa pormenorizada do consumo de energia, sendo esta anotada em modelos AMALTHEA. Desta forma, torna-se possível a análise e gestão energética ao longo de todo o ciclo de vida do sistema. Salienta-se que a solução se encontra alinhada com a norma AUTOSAR Adaptive, permitindo o desenvolvimento de estratégias para a gestão energética de sistemas automáticos, dinâmicos e adaptativos

Vibration

Physiological and biomechanical responses of humans to vibrations during manned space flight and threshold data on tolerances to various vibrational modes and condition

Business Cluster Branding and the Interplay of Cooperation and Competition: A Cross Case Analysis

The number of business cluster is sharply increasing over the last years and consequently they gained massive attention in research. One central question raised, how to improve the competitiveness of business cluster. An approach was to focus on branding. However, cluster work has always in common the appearance of coopetition. The research on coopetition has increased significantly over the last two decades. Nevertheless, the combination of branding and coopetition research on business cluster remain unexplored. Thus, it is relevant to ana-lyze the branding of business clusters and the influence of coopetition. In this research a qualitative research design is used. The primary data set consists of three semi-structured interviews with two managing directors of business cluster in Finland and Germany with dif-ferent funding structure and with a cluster consultant with broad experiences in both coun-tries. That allowed to investigate similarities and differences among the management struc-ture, branding and its coopetition. The findings show that a corporate branding strategy is suitable to brand a cluster organization to give guidance and structure to the process. The complexity of business cluster demands a separation of the branding focus. The inside focus named cluster identity must be shaped and the outside focus named cluster image has the goal to increase visibility. Those two focuses cause coopetition. The cooperation towards a common branding but also the competition about resources from the cluster management side. The positions within the cluster management are a further area of coopetition, as well as the process to create the cluster identity. The cluster management must be aware of those areas to efficiently manage those tensions. The study provides practical insights on managing cluster branding and helps to anticipates common areas of coopetition