Melone, Nancy

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Association for Information SystemsAIS Electronic Library (AISeL)ICIS 1989 Proceedings International Conference on Information Systems(ICIS)1989PANEL 3 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OFMANUFACTURING INFORMATIONSYSTEMS IN THE 90s: ORGANIZATIONALAND OPERATIONAL ISSUESNancy MeloneCarnegie Mellon UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis1989This material is brought to you by the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been acceptedfor inclusion in ICIS 1989 Proceedings by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contactelibrary@aisnet.org.Recommended CitationMelone, Nancy, "PANEL 3 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF MANUFACTURING INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN THE 90s:ORGANIZATIONAL AND OPERATIONAL ISSUES" (1989). ICIS 1989 Proceedings. 26.http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis1989/26PANEL 3STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF MANUFACTURING INFORMATIONSYSTEMS IN THE 90s: ORGANIZATIONAL ANDOPERATIONAL ISSUESPanel Chair: Nancy Melone, Carnegie Mellon UniversityPanelists: Robert Booth, General MotorsSunder Kekre, Carnegie Mellon UniversityHelen Newman, Eastman Kodak CompanyWith globalization of manufacturing and service operations, information systems are becoming increasingly complex.Companies are re-examining their information system strategies from organizational and operational standpoints. Froman organizational standpoint, the changes that seem to be emerging are:• Strategic Partnerships. New technologies integrating voice, data, and image provide fresh opportunities to enhanceproductivity. However, the expertise required to achieve these benefits is often not resident in-house. A growingnumber of firms are forming strategic alliances with others so that the necessary expertise is acquired and sharedwithout diluting their comparative advantages.• Decentralization of Previously Centralized Systems. There is an increasing trend toward decentralization ofdecision making within the firm to improve responsiveness, data integrity, and accountability. However, this raisesissues regarding the criteria used in deciding what to centralize and what to decentralize (e.g., data, programming,processing). With the economics associated with hardware substantially changing in the last decade, as well as newopportunities being found with local area networks (LAN), the scales seem to be tilting in favor of decentralizedsystems.From an operational standpoint, the integration of information flows with the physical flows appears to be a key successfactor as firms struggle to achieve just-in-time manufacturing. The key issue in managing such production systems isintegration of physical flows with information flows to form a new information-intensive paradigm. For instance, inmodern flexible vehicle assembly, individual machines are more tightly coupled and interdependent in terms ofinformation flows as well as physical product flows. The integration of the physical and information flows is critical toefficiently manage material flows, to manage quality, and to make product mix decisions. This requirement is mademore critical because the informal intuition of seasoned plant managers is rooted in the conventional assembly, whichhas little resemblance to the complex flows in a modern flexible assembly system.The common theme that emerges is one of functional area integration brought on by a new set of enabling technologies.Such integration presents a host of challenges and opportunities to the manager and researcher. These challenges arediscussed from the perspectives of management practice and future research.391

PANEL 3 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF MANUFACTURING INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN THE 90s: ORGANIZATIONAL AND OPERATIONAL ISSUES

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PANEL 3 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF MANUFACTURING INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN THE 90s: ORGANIZATIONAL AND OPERATIONAL ISSUES

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