Cooperative Planning, Uncertainty, and Managerial Control in Concurrent Design

Victoria L. Mitchell () and Barrie R. Nault ()
Additional contact information
Victoria L. Mitchell: Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
Barrie R. Nault: Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4

Management Science, 2007, vol. 53, issue 3, 375-389

Abstract: We examine whether cooperative planning and uncertainty affect the magnitude of rework in concurrent engineering projects with upstream and downstream operations, and explore the impact of such rework on project delays. Using survey data from a sample of 120 business process (BP) redesign and related information technology (IT) development projects in healthcare and telecommunications, our results indicate that upstream (BP) rework and downstream (IT) rework is mediated and mitigated by cooperative planning through upstream/downstream strategy coupling and cross-functional involvement. In addition, uncertainty related to a lack of firm or industry experience with such projects increases the magnitude of upstream rework but not downstream rework or the amount of cooperative planning. After accounting for project scope, implementation horizon and whether delays are anticipated, we find that project delay is primarily influenced by the magnitude of downstream rework and downstream delay: the magnitude of both upstream and downstream rework significantly increases downstream delay, which significantly increases project delay. However, the magnitude of upstream rework does not directly affect project delay. These results suggest that project delay is under managerial control as cooperative planning is a managerial function that reduces downstream rework, while uncertainty from a lack of experience with the design affecting upstream rework is not directly under managerial control.

Keywords: concurrent design; uncertainty; coordination; cooperative planning; concurrent engineering; project management; delay; process redesign; rework (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1060.0641 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:53:y:2007:i:3:p:375-389

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().