Document-centered information systems to support reactive problem-solving in manufacturing

Abstract

This paper develops and illustrates a methodology for building document-based information systems to support collaborative manufacturing problem-solving. The paper begins with an exploratory case study to understand the information requirements for reactive problem-solving in manufacturing. We focus on the communication mechanisms, decision-making processes, and implementation issues to address problems that arise due to materials shortage in an electronics assembly plant. Based upon observations from this case study, we describe a conceptual framework for computer-supported reactive problem-solving that emphasizes parsimony and generalizability. The framework consists of 4 layers—organizational process, computational process, data/information model, and network architecture—to link the necessary interactions between people, application systems, database structures, and hardware. To better support the collaborative needs of reactive problem-solving, we extend existing manufacturing information models to incorporate collaborative distributed hypermedia (or interlinked networks of structured multimedia documents), and provide details of a novel strategy to develop computer support for effective reactive problem-solving.