On outsourcing and offshoring:Challenges facing management and engineering

Year: 2011
Author: Hansen, Zaza Nadja Lee
Supervisor: Ahmed-Kristensen, Saema; Rasmussen, Lauge; Conrad, Finn
Institution: Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Page(s): 307
ISBN: 978-87-92706-26-3

Abstract

Companies are increasingly globalising their product development process from manufacturing to R&D through offshoring and outsourcing to gain competitive advantages. However, this has created new challenges as tasks and activities have to be coordinated across cultures and vast distances. The project goal was to present a framework for decision making in relation to globalising the product development process which addresses the risks with this process. Data collection was through case studies of 7 companies. 57 interviews were carried out. The Global Decision Making (GDM) framework was developed based on these findings and the subsequent analysis. This iterative framework ensures continuous adaptation to market changes. It has five stages: (1) Strategic goal setting, (2) Strategic planning, (3) Operational planning, (4) implementation and (5) evaluation. This research project has contributed to academia and industry through the empirical study and the GDM framework which uses cross-disciplinary methods in a new way and is a concrete tool companies can use to address and minimise the risks associated with globalising the product development process.