Industrial Team Research Articles

Self-managed work teams: an enabling or coercive nature

The paper analyses self-managed work teams (SMWTs) of two Portuguese industrial firms, using the case-study method. It examines the nature of SMWTs, by discerning a double enabling and coercive face. The enabling features are related to high levels of job enrichment, broad employee participation, and extensive communication. The coercive features are related to incidental job rotation to optimize technology, asymmetries of technical knowledge between supervisors or industrial engineers and team members, economic cohesion based upon the group-performance system and peer pressure toward self-discipline. An enabling face of SMWT has greater chances to prevail under an organizational infrastructure based upon management commitment regarding economic, cultural and social objectives of SMWTs, management ability to develop a set of complementary and mutually reinforcing HR practices and production programs aligned with SMWTs, as well as a past history and employees' past experience in tune with present changes.

Status of next generation expendable launchers concepts within the FLPP program

In the framework of the preparation of the next generation of launchers to be developed in Europe, the European Space Agency (ESA) has contracted NGL Prime and its industrial team to conduct a first slice of launch system and stage design activities and programmatic analyses for two types of launchers: • A new expendable mid-term launch system relying on elements or “Building Blocks” from Ariane and Vega to be operational by 2015. • A new long-term launch system called the Next Generation Launcher (NGL) to be operational by 2020–2025. The design reference missions include a 5 metric tons performance requirement into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO), to meet the European institutional need, with the increased capability to 8 metric tons into GTO by the addition of solid boosters, to meet the commercial market needs. In a first step, a series of trade-offs were conducted to select the concepts that best fit the requirements of the NGL and “Building Block” launcher options, in terms of propulsion (thrust level, engine characteristics), propellant choice (hydrogen, methane or solid propellants), launcher architecture (with or without strap-on boosters, bi or three stages architecture). In a second step, more detailed analyses were carried out in term of thermo-mechanical design, functional architecture, as well as in term of versatility capacity, i.e. the capability of the launcher to perform different missions than the reference ones. Consistently with this technical activity, a programmatic evaluation was consolidated by the industrial team. This paper details the outcomes of the activity carried out during this second step targeting at selecting one or two concepts. The paper will also give an overview and first results of the follow-on contract in which selected NGL concepts are being further investigated, in the prospect of creating a new European launcher family encompassing versions dedicated to the institutional needs and the commercial market (reference missions), as well as some versions dedicated to more demanding institutional missions (heavy low orbit payload insertions or escape missions) based on a Common Core Booster approach.

Different Jobs Need Different Cultures

Team performance is affected by cultural values; in this paper we propose that cultural differences have different influences in distinct job-fields. The implications are based upon a survey of software development teams in the game software industry. We focus on the game software industry as it represents an under-researched field, and the game software development teams are truly international work teams and are predestinated for cross-cultural research. Based upon cross-cultural information systems and teamwork literature, we develop a conceptual model with the constructs of cultural values, cultural intelligence, mindfulness, teamwork quality, and team performance and tested it on a sample of 179 game developers. The results show that cultural values have an influence on team performance and more important these values differ in the job- fields.

Value creating construction virtual teams: A case study in the construction sector

The research explores factors influencing knowledge value creation of virtual teams in the construction industry. Collectiveness and conscientiousness emerge as important socio-cultural enablers for value creation. Collectiveness represents the degree of cohesiveness and social relationships between virtual team members and conscientiousness represents an awareness of the situation and avoidance of uncertainty and risk by team members. Moreover, technology assets, human networks, social capital, intellectual capital, and change management are identified as essential ingredients that have the potential to ensure effective knowledge value creation.

Model checking

Turing Lecture from the winners of the 2007 ACM A.M. Turing Award. In 1981, Edmund M. Clarke and E. Allen Emerson, working in the USA, and Joseph Sifakis working independently in France, authored seminal papers that founded what has become the highly successful field of model checking. This verification technology provides an algorithmic means of determining whether an abstract model---representing, for example, a hardware or software design---satisfies a formal specification expressed as a temporal logic (TL) formula. Moreover, if the property does not hold, the method identifies a counterexample execution that shows the source of the problem. The progression of model checking to the point where it can be successfully used for complex systems has required the development of sophisticated means of coping with what is known as the state explosion problem. Great strides have been made on this problem over the past 28 years by what is now a very large international research community. As a result many major hardware and software companies are beginning to use model checking in practice. Examples of its use include the verification of VLSI circuits, communication protocols, software device drivers, real-time embedded systems, and security algorithms. The work of Clarke, Emerson, and Sifakis continues to be central to the success of this research area. Their work over the years has led to the creation of new logics for specification, new verification algorithms, and surprising theoretical results. Model checking tools, created by both academic and industrial teams, have resulted in an entirely novel approach to verification and test case generation. This approach, for example, often enables engineers in the electronics industry to design complex systems with considerable assurance regarding the correctness of their initial designs. Model checking promises to have an even greater impact on the hardware and software industries in the future. --- Moshe Y. Vardi, Editor-in-Chief

LLNL, industry team boost truck fuel efficiency

LLNL, industry team boost truck fuel efficiency

Top management team composition and views of viable strategies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to form propositions about the relationship between the cognitive composition of the top management team and its view of the viable strategy for a firm.Design/methodology/approachThe cognitive style of 58 members of ten top management teams were analyzed using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the strategy types based on Miles and Snow typology were defined using the paragraph approach. Descriptive statistics were used in the analysis.FindingsBased on data from the ten top management teams in the spa industry, this study proposes that the cognitive composition of the top management team affects the strategies they prefer. Further, it is proposed that intuitive‐thinking top management teams prefer either a prospector or an analyzer strategy. A defender or an analyzer strategy is preferred by sensing‐thinking top management teams. Defining the composition of the top management team using the cognitive style is proposed to be a more promising way to explain the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the team than traditional measures such as age or education in this context.Practical implicationsFor the top management teams, the results of this study emphasize the importance of knowing the cognitive composition of the top management team and especially taking it into consideration during strategic decision‐making.Originality/valueThis study extends existing research by illuminating the relationships between the cognitive composition of the top management team and the strategy type and also confirms several results drawn from previous studies concerning manager‐strategy relationships. This paper also attempts to inspire researchers to take cognitive composition into consideration when studying the influences the top management team has on a firm's strategy.

Interim storage of power reactor spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and its potential application to SNF separations and closed fuel cycle

Interim, centralized, engineered (dry cask) storage facilities for USA light water power reactor spent nuclear fuel (SNF) should be implemented to complement and to offer much needed flexibility while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is funded to complete its evaluation of the Yucca Mountain License and to subject it to public hearings. The interim sites should use the credo reproduced in Table 1 [Bunn, M., 2001. Interim Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel. Harvard University and University of Tokyo] and involve both the industry and government. The sites will help settle the 50 pending lawsuits against the government and the $11 billion of potential additional liabilities for SNF delay damages if Yucca Mountain does not being operation in 2020 [DOE, 2008a. Report to Congress on the Demonstration of the Interim Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel from Decommissioned Nuclear Power Stations (December)]. Under the developing consensus to proceed with closed fuel cycles, it will be necessary to develop SNF separation facilities with stringent requirements upon separation processes and upon generation of only highly resistant waste forms. The location of such facilities at the interim storage sites would offer great benefits to those sites and assure their long term viability by returning them to their original status. The switch from once-through to closed fuel cycle will require extensive time and development work as illustrated in “The Path to Sustainable Nuclear Energy” [DOE, 2005. The Path to Sustainable Nuclear Energy. Basic and Applied Research Opportunities for Advanced Fuel Cycles. DOE (September)]. A carefully crafted long term program, funded for at least 5 years, managed by a strong joint government–industry team, and subjected to regular independent reviews should be considered to assure the program stability and success. The new uncertainty about Yucca Mountain role raises two key issues: (a) what to do with the weapons and other high level government wastes committed to be moved to Yucca Mountain by specified dates? And (b) can the $13.6 billion invested at Yucca Mountain be salvaged if the NRC approves the license submittal and the opposition relents after contentious hearings? Or will it take contingent actions, or, a switch to a partial closed fuel cycle with its reduced risks and earlier timing of their peak risk value? Only time will tell if any of these alternates will be acceptable but, they all reinforce the need for interim storage for commercial SNF. If the decision is to go to a new repository one wonders whether the time has not come to change the safety evaluation process for geological repositories by characterizing two to three sites and subjecting them to an arbitrary release of the fission products in the HLW to be stored and considering the forms of some of the HLW to reduce their peak risks. It would allow the proper choice to be made among the selected sites and to have a basis for convincing the local committee to accept the repository location. It may even decide whether the CONFU fuel assembly [MIT, 2006. Implications of alternative strategies for transition to sustainable fuel cycles. Nucl. Sci. Eng., 154 (September)] for pressurized water reactors can be accommodated in a once-through fuel cycle as suggested by Levy [Levy, S., 2008. Yucca backup plan. Nucl. Eng. Int., 24–28]. A similar configuration is possible in boiling water reactors.

Network Evolution: The Origins of Structural Holes

We develop and test a theory of the origins of network structures, specifically of structural holes, building and testing a theoretical framework proposing that network structures emerge from the interplay of two complementary forces: structural constraints and network opportunities. We analyze data on a co-membership network among 501 production teams in the Italian TV production industry tracked over a period of 12 years, explicitly accounting for endogeneity. We find that structural holes spanned by teams originate from the prior status and centrality of teams that members were part of in the past, in addition to structural holes spanned in the past. But a focal team spans fewer structural holes if its members were part of cohesive teams earlier and if the past teams they were connected to produced similar artistic content. We also demonstrate that spanning structural holes is associated with superior team performance in terms of greater viewership. The results support both opportunity exploitation and structural constraint explanations, although we find that homogeneity rather than diversity influences performance across structural holes.

국내 원자력발전소 인적오류 저감을 위한 Crew Resource Management 교육훈련체계 개발

The nuclear power industry in the world has recognized the importance of integrating non-technical and team skills training with the technical training given to its control room operators to reduce human errors since the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents. The Nuclear power plant (NPP) industry in Korea has been also making efforts to reduce the human errors which largely have contributed to 120 nuclear reactor trips from the year 2001 to 2006. The Crew Resource Management (CRM) training was one of the efforts to reduce the human errors in the nuclear power industry. The CRM was developed as a response to new insights into the causes of aircraft accidents which followed from the introduction of flight recorders and cockpit voice recorders into modern jet aircraft. The CRM first became widely used in the commercial airline industry, but military aviation, shipboard crews, medical and surgical teams, offshore oil crews, and other highconsequence, high-risk, time-critical industry teams soon followed. This study aims to develop a CRM training program that helps to improve plant performance by reducing the number of reactor trips caused by the operators' errors in Korean NPP. The program is; firstly, based on the work we conducted to develop a human factors training from the applications to the Nuclear Power Plant; secondly, based on a number of guidelines from the current practicable literature; thirdly, focused on team skills, such as leadership, situational awareness, teamwork, and communication, which have been widely known to be critical for improving the operational performance and reducing human errors in Korean NPPs; lastly, similar to the event-based training approach that many researchers have applied in other domains: aircraft, medical operations, railroads, and offshore oilrigs. We conducted an experiment to test effectiveness of the CRM training program in a condition of simulated control room also. We found that the program made the operators' attitudes and behaviors be improved positively from the experimental results. The more implications of the finding were discussed further in detail.

Technology Focus: Well Testing (February 2009)

Technology Focus Many of us, at one time or another in our careers, have encountered industry colleagues or team members convinced of the need to gather information, sometimes at any cost. In contrast, just as many struggle with advocating even the most rudimentary data gathering to decision makers within their company. A common problem, particularly in small companies, can be a tendency to make quick decisions without considering possible effects by relying on past experience and judgment to expedite decision making for new problems. Planning can seem bureaucratic and unnecessary, particularly to less-experienced or nontechnical professionals. However, when objectives are not established and deliverables are not determined before making the final decision, the result can be a large invoice and information or service that is essentially useless. Modern software, sometimes with less effort than my children put into mastering the latest "Xbox 360" release, will transform any kind of input data into an impressive array of results that can provide compelling justification for a completely wrong conclusion. I am picturing trainloads of investors passing through early oil fields where a strong pump and full tank battery could provide an impressive "gusher" timed by the promoter for just the right moment! And even a cursory look at input and assumptions going into some of our modern analysis can keep us from drawing wrong conclusions. Along with colorful or animated results, the most useful and relevant analysis in our industry will always invest the necessary time to confirm quality of the input data and verify the purpose or application of the results. The papers highlighted on the following pages provide good examples of how unmet needs can provide insight into better analysis methods. New tools result from the need to acquire important information that would otherwise be uneconomic. Thorough engineers and technicians will be interested in the accuracy of their analysis as it relates to the quality of the input data. Solid analysis over time can uncover further insight into the performance of a hydrocarbon asset. I hope that you will find the selected papers of interest and that they will provide stimulation for new approaches in your well-testing and surveillance activities. Well Testing additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org SPE 116744 • "Equivalent Skin Factors for Nonuniformly Damaged Horizontal and Multilateral Wells" by Turhan Yildiz, SPE, Colorado School of Mines SPE 118940 • "Evaluation of Skin Factor From Single-Rate Gas-Well Test" by K. Aminian, West Virginia University, et al. Additional reading available at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org OTC 19140 • "Oilwell Transient Testing by Injection of Miscible Liquid" by J.J. Voelker, SPE, Chevron

US Environmental Protection Agency Uses Operations Research to Reduce Contamination Risks in Drinking Water

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the lead federal agency for the security of drinking water in the United States. The agency is responsible for providing information and technical assistance to the more than 50,000 water utilities across the country. The distributed physical layout of drinking-water utilities makes them inherently vulnerable to contamination incidents caused by terrorists. To counter this threat, the EPA is using operations research to design, test, and deploy contamination warning systems (CWSs) that rapidly detect the presence of contaminants in drinking water. We developed a software tool to optimize the design process, published a decision-making process to assist utilities in applying the tool, pilot-tested the tool on nine large water utilities, and provided training and technical assistance to a larger group of utilities. We formed a collaborative team of industry, academia, and government to critique our approach and share CWS deployment experiences. Our work has demonstrated that a CWS is a cost-effective, timely, and capable method of detecting a broad range of contaminants. Widespread application of these new systems will significantly reduce the risks associated with catastrophic contamination incidents: the median estimated fatalities reduction for the nine utilities already studied is 48 percent; the corresponding economic-impact reduction is over $19 billion. Because of this operations research program, online monitoring programs, such as a CWS, are now the accepted technology for reducing contamination risks in drinking water.

Self-managed work teams: a lean or an autonomous teamwork model?

The paper examines how similar Self-Managed Work Teams (SMWTs) are to paradigmatic industrial teams – the lean teamwork, the sociotechnical autonomous group and the traditional Fordist group – highlighting their technical/structural, governance and normative characteristics. The SMWTs from two Portuguese industrial firms are analysed using the case-study methodology. Resemblance to the lean teamwork model is more evident than with any other group model. Team members perceive high job enrichment, what resembles the autonomous work group model. However, several team members maintain narrow jobs, numerical flexibility is more evident than functional flexibility and team management comes mainly from outside, which are some of the features close to the 'old' Fordist group. Finally, cooperation behaviours and attitudes between team members are clear features in these teams, but the cognitive dimension of cooperation, similar to collective competence, is not yet noticeable.

Age differences between leader and followers as a moderator of the relationship between transformational leadership and team performance

In a field study of 49 R&D teams in the pharmaceutical industry, the age difference between the team leader and the team members was examined as a moderator of the relationship between transformational leadership and team supervisors' longitudinal ratings of team performance. Data collected from 285 team members and 21 team supervisors showed that this relationship was positive when the leader was older than the other team members, but non‐significant when the leader's age was closer to the mean age of the team members. This finding broadens the still fragmentary knowledge of the conditions under which transformational leadership is likely to have more or less positive effects on team performance.

The social structure of leadership and creativity in engineering design teams: An empirical analysis

Creativity is essential for research and development efforts. Unfortunately, little is known about how the role of team leaders determines the team's creativity. Based on a sample of 39 engineering design teams in the space industry, this study examines the effects of leader position within different flows of communication on team creativity. The results indicate that the balance between holding a central or a peripheral position indeed determines the creativity of such teams. Specifically, very central and very peripheral positions of team leaders within the work-flow and awareness network hamper team creativity, whereas peripheral situated team leaders within the information network propel the creativity. In addition, team leaders stimulate creativity when they stay central in the external information network. In managerial terms, the analyses implicate that stimulating engineering design team creativity requires team leaders to smartly limit their involvement in communication and mainly act as gatekeepers to external sources of information.

FCV Learning Demonstration: Project Midpoint Status and First-Generation Vehicle Results

The “Controlled Hydrogen Fleet and Infrastructure Demonstration and Validation Project,” also known as the Fuel Cell Vehicle and Infrastructure Learning Demonstration, is a 5-year U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project started in 2004. The purpose of this project is to conduct an integrated field validation that simultaneously examines the performance of fuel cell vehicles and the supporting hydrogen infrastructure. Four industry teams are currently operating more than 77 vehicles and 14 refueling stations, with plans to add over 50 additional vehicles and several additional refueling stations during the remainder of the project duration. This paper covers the progress accomplished by the demonstration and validation project since inception, including results from analysis of six months of new data.With three sets of public results having been presented previously, this paper comes at roughly the midpoint of the project, just as second-generation fuel cell stacks and vehicles are being introduced and some early vehicles are being retired. With many fuel cell stacks having accumulated well over 500 hours of real-world operation, there is now a higher level of confidence in the trends and projections relating to the durability and voltage degradation of these first-generation fuel cell stacks.Public results for this project are in the form of composite data products, which aggregate individual performance into a range that protects the intellectual property and the identity of each company, while still publishing overall status and progress. In addition to generating composite data products, NREL is performing additional analyses to provide detailed recommendations back to the R&D program. This includes analysis to identify sensitivities of fuel cell durability to factors such as vehicle duty cycle, number of on/off cycles, time at idle, and ambient temperature. An overview of this multivariate analysis and preliminary findings will be shared, with future project activities discussed.

Development of a MEMS-based sensor array to characterise in situ loads during scoliosis correction surgery

Finite element analysis was implemented in three stages to design a piezoresistive, micro-electro-mechanical systems sensor array consisting of four-terminal sensors placed on deformable silicon diaphragms. This sensor array was used to retrofit the Contrel–Dubousset instrumentation in order to capture forces and moments applied by surgeons in real time during scoliosis correction surgery. Outputs from the sensor array have been designed to be compatible with a low-power wireless data transmission system that is currently being developed with a collaborating team in the biomedical industry. The designed sensor array is capable of resolving forces of up to 1000 N and moments of up to 4000 N mm in three dimensions during surgery. A process flow to produce the first prototyped version of this micro sensor with known performance characteristics is presented and tested. Acceptable correlation was found between the performance of the manufactured prototypes, numerical simulation and similar documented devices.

Takım Yönetimi ve Takım Etkinliğini Belirleyen Faktörler : Savunma Sanayinde Ar - Ge Yapan Takımlar Üzerinde Bir Saha Araştırması

In order to benefit from teams, the effectiveness of teams should be increased. The role and responsibilities should be defined, team members should be educated to improve their skills, performance objectives should be identified, resources should be used at optimum level, team culture and leadership should be established to increase the team effectiveness. In this study, we aim to examine the relationship among the team effectiveness factors - specified as team synergy, use of resources, skills, communication and performance objectives - innovation orientation and quality orientation at teams in defense industry while leadership effect is high, low and absent. Survey is conducted on 15 team producing equipment for defense industry. Questionnaire form employing five - point Likert Scale is used and data are analyzed through the SPSS statistical program packet.

Managing Global Design Teams

OVERVIEW:Geographically distributed design teams have become crucial, yet a significant number fail to accomplish their objectives. The reason is that long distances and cultural differences compromise working relationships, communications, trust, accountability, organization, individual contribution, and thus productivity. This paper analyzes eight such teams in the high-tech industry and discusses the most common issues/problems that surround them. These are categorized as technological, organizational and personal. An expert panel assigns a score to the problems and provides a set of recommendations that can improve productivity and minimize failure in such virtual teams.

Project team effectiveness: the case for sufficient setup and top management involvement

Launching and supporting successful maintenance projects is an overlooked aspect of maintenance management research. This paper examines the effects of four important factors on project success: resource allocation, team leader authority, significant project objectives, and top management involvement. Additionally, we investigate the moderating effects of top management involvement on the relationship between inputs and team performance. By examining the responses from 60 industrial teams we found that a project team's ability to function efficiently is positively related to resource allocation and significant project objectives and negatively related to team leader authority and top management involvement. A project team's ability to achieve its business goals was positively related to significant project objectives. Moreover, the relationship was stronger for significant project objectives and project efficiency when top management was involved. The moderator also enhanced the team leader authority–goal achievement relationship but negatively impacted the team leader authority–project efficiency relationship. Implications are discussed.