T-company Case Study on Product Data Management in Taiwan

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2 實施產品資料管理的成功因素分析 : 電子製造行業的案例研究摘要在全球市場中, 為促進競爭優勢, 許多企業尋求新的方法來降低成本為了滿足客戶的要求而持續發展含有更多功能的資訊產品, 開發人員必須管理和控制一系列的技術和持續增長的產品資料本研究選擇臺灣成立的老企業 T 公司為主體, 我們通過 T 公司的三個研發部門的 6 個案例研究發現了 21 項理論的關鍵成功因素 (CSFs), 從中指出在實施產品資料管理之前及進行中最重要的 10 項關鍵成功因素, 對相關的電子產品企業的高階經營管理階層可以做為一個參考模式

3 Advanced Materials Research Vols (2013) pp (2013) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland doi: / Analyzing the Success Factors on the Implementation of Product Data Management: A Case Study of Electronic Manufacturing Industry Huei-Huang Chen,1,a, Shih-Chi Liu 1,b, Shih-Chih Chen 1,c, Szu-Hsiung Yeh 2, Yu-Ting Lin 1 and Ni-Yen Kuan 1 1 Department of Information Management, Tatung University, No.40, Sec. 3, Zhongshan N. Rd., Taipei City 104, Taiwan 2 Graduate School of Management, Tatung University, No.40, Sec. 3, Zhongshan N. Rd., Taipei City 104, Taiwan a hhchen@ttu.edu.tw, b aron.shihchi@gmail.com, c scchen@ttu.edu.tw Keywords: Knowledge Management, Product Data Management, Critical Success Factors, Case Study. Abstract. For promoting competitive advantages, many companies seek new ways to decrease costs in global markets. Information products contain more functionality, and their developments are continuous process to meet customer requirements. Developers have to manage and control a range of technology and increasing amount of product data. This research selects an old established enterprise named T-company in Taiwan as the subject. We found out 21 theoretical critical success factors (CSFs) from 6 case studies via three research and development departments of T-company. We pointed out 10 most important CSFs should be the critical point before and during the product data management implementation, which can be a reference model to executives of related electronic businesses. Introduction The business process in an enterprise includes many branches such as market research, research and development (R&D), procurement, production, inventory control, sales, deliver and after services etc. The main purpose of enterprise will be pushing product or service to customer in order to get revenue and profit; therefore, the ability to earn profit depends on orderly and efficient operation. However, severe competition and on-going advanced technology increase complexity of the product; besides, there are pressure such as time-to-market, the shortening product's life cycle and large scale requirement of the customization. The motive of this research is based on the understanding of most enterprises in Taiwan that are lagging the usage of IT very much comparing to the enterprises which are from Europe, America and Japan. Hence most enterprises in Taiwan are still staying in OEM phase. In order to increase competitive advantage and obtain purchase order, enterprises in Taiwan need to acknowledge the importance of Product Data Management (PDM) and try to find out the solution for the implementation [1]. This research selects T-company as objective for the case study. The first step of this research starts from the understanding of PDM system, and tries to search for the theoretical Critical Success Factors (CSFs) from the literature. The next step is to seek for the successful cases from literature to explore the common CSFs of successful cases. The final purpose of this research will use T-company as the subject of the case study to understand the demand of PDM. We hope that sharing this case study can improve PDM application into more companies. Literature review on PDM and related concepts 2.1 PDM A common theme in early PDM systems was to focus on the downstream engineering process, namely capturing and managing the engineering product data from the point of initial release, manufacturing and through to product obsolescence. They had seen their customers' data management problems and were well positioned to add PDM to their product line. Typically, they focused on selling their PDM systems to their existing customers and often used PDM to leverage All rights reserved. No part of contents of this paper may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of TTP, (ID: /10/12,10:47:26)

4 Advanced Materials Research Vols sales of CAD/CAM/CAE [1]. PDM system specialize to manage data in product develop life cycle. It spends less time to organize, reduce data reduplication and improve productivity. In summary, PDM is defined to integrate and manage processes, applications and all kind of information that define products across multiple systems and media [2]. Hence, the complex and dynamic environment can be handled by using PDM solutions [1]. In recent years, the other areas of product life cycle have been targeted for improvement, especially for supporting of collaborating design function and processes of conceptual design [3,4,5]. The need of time-to-market is a major issue for most companies. Time-to-market can be reduced by shortening time from initial concept to the first shipments of product. 2.2The implementation of PDM system The procedure of PDM implementation will be deeply influenced by various situations, such as application of PDM, the product design of company and production flow which will be changed due to different organizations [6]. The implementation can be divided to the following steps: (1) project planning; (2) organizing task force; (3) planning in detail; (4) business flow analysis; (5) system analysis; (6) program coding; (7) system testing; and (8) system on-line training. Research method 3.1 The hypothesis of the research This study surveyed the prior literature and case studies including HP, Ericsson, Nokia, OKI, and Acer, to understand the common critical success factors about implementing the PDM in a business. From literature review in Section 2 of this research, we found out there are 21 theoretical critical success factors of 6 cases. Hence, this research makes the following hypothesis. Before proceeding the research of T-company, writer would like to introduce more details about T-company. Table 1 Interview items of critical success factors in this research Theoretical Case Interview Items HP Ericsson Nokia OKI Acer CSF CSF 1. Clarify requirements to implement the PDM system 2. Support from top executive officer 3. Organize a cross-function task force 4. Improve and modify the prior work flow completely 5. Understand the major issues of implementing PDM 6. Evaluate the solution providers of PDM 7. Prepare an introduction to recommended site 8. Set the objective to be the solution provider 9. Implement the PDM system from the famous vendor 10. Hire or own the consulting personnel 11. Integrate and kept the legacy product data

5 1986 Sustainable Development of Natural Resources 12. Consider the integration with other IT system at the beginning 13. Use Internet and IT technology 14. Reinforce training and two way communication 15. Prepare a small scale pilot-run 16. Specify the plan with stages and then carried out the plan step by step 17. Gain the control right of the product data from the engineer 18. Concentrate on re-organizing the organization at the beginning or not 19. Concentrate the efforts on business requirement but not the technical requirement 20. Evaluate the current vender whether their product meets the business and technical requirements or not 21. Prepare an introduction to a case company recommended by the vender 3.2 The introduction of T-company In 1918, T-company was started with the construction business. Afterward, it transferred to do iron works. Then, it began to produce electric fans, automatic steamers, refrigerators, air-conditioning products and TV sets. Nowadays, T-company was transferred to produce 3C products (consumer, communication and computer) as the major products. In order to comply with the OEM requirements from the big player in Europe, America and Japan, T-company had already implemented global logistic system and became very famous in this field. T-company was using the advantage of 15 subsidiaries around the world to reinforce and deploy the global IT system. The design of the questionnaire for interviewing this research takes three R&D departments of T-company as the case study objective. There are around 600 engineers in total. They design PC, workstation, server, CRT monitor, TFT-LCD monitor, automatic home appliance and web pad etc. Although the observation by interviewing will be not so deeply compares to the observation by participation, the former one is more objectively. In order to reduce bias from the interviewees, hence this research selected the highest executive officer, the middle manager, engineers and maintenance personnel of PDM system to get more representatives to reach the result of inter-subjectivity by analyzing and comparing. 30 persons were selected to do interviews. Conclusions This research finds out there are 21 CSFs of the cases; total in 17 CSFs of combination, by using three R&D departments of T-company as the objective. In order to reduce bias from the interviewees, hence this research selected the executive, the middle managers, engineers and maintenance personnel of PDM system to get the more representative to reach the result of inter-subjectivity by analyzing and comparing. 30 persons were selected to do the interview. We may find the mean value (µ 1 ) and standard deviation (σ 1 ) of 13 CSF of cases and the mean value (µ 2 ) and standard deviation (σ 2 ) of each theoretical CSF. This research makes hypothesis as "the degree of the agreement of people to the case CSF and theoretical CSF will be similar". It means the difference is not significant, therefore we will accept H0. It means the opinion of three R&D departments of T-company regarding to 13 CSFs of case and 10 theoretical CSFs are very close. In other words, these two categories of CSF are equally important. By making ordering of the 17

6 Advanced Materials Research Vols combined CSFs, we will find 10 most important CSFs. The above 10 CSFs should be the critical point before and during PDM implementation, which can be the reference to the executive officer and other related electronic enterprises. The benefit after PDM implementation includes providing single source for all of design content, collaborating with customers, quickly respond to customer queries and changing market requirements, reducing time-to-market, increasing the productivity of design department, having accuracy improvement of design and production, securing protection to integrated data with better project control [2,3,6]. The research tries to find out whether the interviewees prefer theoretical CSF or CSF of the cases. The outcome can be the reference for the executive officer to implement PDM system on the other departments or as the reference for other related electronic enterprises. References [1] D. Tony Liu and X. William Xu, A review of web-based product data management systems, Computers in Industry, Vol.44, No.3, pp , [2] Hanna Kropsu-Vehkapera, Harri Haapasalo, Janne Harkonen, Risto Silvola, Product data management practices in high-tech companies, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 109, No.6, pp , [3] Chan, E. and K. M. Yu, A concurrency control model for PDM systems, Computers in Industry, Vol.58, No.8 9, pp , [4] Jiun-Yan, S., L. Xiangyang, et al., A Documented Configuration Change Control Workflow to Conceptual Design for Supply Chain, in IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control, Florida, USA, pp , [5] William Xu, X. and Tony Liu, A web-enabled PDM system in a collaborative design environment, Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Vol 19(4), pp , 2003 [6] CIMdata, Inc., Getting Started in PDM "Companies of All Sizes Can Take Advantage of Today's PDM Systems, CIM Data, Ann Arbor Michigan, USA, 2008.