The Concurrent Role of Professional Training and Operations Management: Evidences from the after-Sales Services Information Systems Architecture in the Automotive Sector

Abstract

The automotive industry is one of the most successful and dynamic environments playing a key role in the economic market. The actors involved in it assume different functions by which they collaborate and interact for the operations and processes of production and innovation. As a part of the product development process, the manufacturing and the aftersales services are indeed connected and inter-dependencies occur among them for product development, customer satisfaction and economic performance. The management of the operations among the manufacturing and after-sales services is one of the most important bases for the development and life cycle management of the products. The operations and their management are established according to the purposes of collaboration and are updated continuously by creating and adding elements to improve them and to achieve continuous positive outcomes. Besides, the human capital involved in the operations also needs competences and skills improvement in order to be aligned with the operations and its management. Thus, in this chapter, we question the role of professional training that is leading to the development of the competences of the people involved in the operations and their management, and investigate on the concurrent role of both through the presentation of the information systems architecture connecting a large firm in the automotive industry with its after-sales services partners. First, we present the literature concerning the professional training to define it and to show the major role it plays as competences enhancer and developer, and the operations management to show that it is the focus of engineering and development. Then, we present the information systems architecture subject of the study, but before that we present the conceptual framework and research methodology. After that, we explain the need for strategic changes in the information systems architecture of the after-sales services, some issues for the changes, and initial proofs of the concurrent role of professional training and