Front-Loading Problem-Solving in Co-Development: Managing the Contractual, Organizational and Cognitive Dimensions

Gilles Garel and Christophe Midler
Additional contact information
Gilles Garel: CRG - Centre de recherche en gestion - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Christophe Midler: CRG - Centre de recherche en gestion - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Front-loading " problem-solving is one of the major strategies to reduce development costs and development lead time. In co-development situations, the implementation of such methodologies rises specific questions, due to the difficult partition in responsabilities and skills between the car manufacturer and the supplier, especially when customer and supplier contributions cannot be clearly interfaced in a " black-box sourcing " relation. This results in a difficult and permanent debate about design modifications. The article analyses such a co-development situation in the case of a car manufacturer and its die design and engineering suppliers. The case illustrate how to combine organizational integration (i.e. co-localization, shared development methodologies) with new economic contracting rules which create front-loading problem-solving incentives for the two partners. We compare the economic outcomes of a traditional process with a co-developped project, from the viewpoint of both the customer and the suppliers. The study demonstrates how co-development played a major role in reducing the number and cost of modifications for the customer. The benefits which suppliers can earn depend on their ability to involve in the project in terms of design and engineering capacity at an early stage. These results generate theoretical outputs which bridge the gap between incentive and contract theories on one side, and cognitive and learning fields on the other.

Keywords: " learning"; "die design"; "concurrent engineering"; " co-development"; "contracts"; concurrent engineering; co-development; contracts; learning; die design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00262521v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, 2001, 2/3 (Sp. Iss), pp.269-286

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-00262521v1/document (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:hal:journl:hal-00262521

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD (hal@ccsd.cnrs.fr).