A Manufacturing Collaboratory Case Study

....................................................................................................................................I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................................................................. II TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................III 1.1. BACKGROUND ....................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN .............................................................................. 4 1.3. THE RESEARCH STUDY........................................................................................................... 5 1.4. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH EXPECTATIONS ............................................................ 6 1.4.1. Distributed teams in organizations................................................................................. 6 1.4.2. Contribution to research on collaborative tools............................................................ 7 1.4.3. Challenges to effectiveness of distributed teams............................................................. 8 1.4.4. Collaborative tools to overcome geographic dispersion ............................................... 9 1.4.5. Collaborative needs of engineers ................................................................................ 10 1.4.6. Effect of collaborative tool introduction on communication, performance and trust. . 11 1.4.7. Review of research questions and expectations........................................................... 14 2. DESCRIPTION OF RESEARCH.......................................................................................... 15 2.1. CONTEXT OF THE CASE-STUDY ............................................................................................ 15 2.1.1. Collaborative Product Development ........................................................................... 15 2.1.2. The Product ................................................................................................................. 17 2.1.3. The Research site......................................................................................................... 18 2.1.4. Power and political issues within the team.................................................................. 21 2.1.5. Cultural differences ..................................................................................................... 24 2.1.6. Work and management styles ...................................................................................... 24 2.1.7. Technical Issues........................................................................................................... 25 2.1.8. Collaboration processes within the team..................................................................... 27 2.2. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AND EVALUATION APPROACH................................................. 27 2.2.1. User-centered Design .................................................................................................. 27 2.2.2. Interview method ......................................................................................................... 28 2.3. BASELINE INTERVIEW DATA AND OBSERVATIONS................................................................ 30 2.4. REQUIREMENTS FOR COLLABORATION ................................................................................ 33 2.4.1. Synchronous communication ....................................................................................... 33 2.4.2. Asynchronous communication ..................................................................................... 34 2.4.3. Time zone issues .......................................................................................................... 34 2.4.4. Scheduling ................................................................................................................... 34 2.4.5. Security ........................................................................................................................ 35 2.4.6. Design specific............................................................................................................. 35 2.4.7. Other............................................................................................................................ 36 2.5. PREINTERVENTION QUESTIONNAIRE.................................................................................. 36 2.5.1. Background items ......................................................................................................... 37 2.5.2. Independent variables.................................................................................................. 39 2.5.3. Outcome measures....................................................................................................... 44 2.6. POSTINTERVENTION QUESTIONNAIRE................................................................................ 48 2.6.1. Items eliminated from Survey Time 2 ......................................................................... 48 2.6.2. Items altered in Survey Time 2 .................................................................................... 50 2.6.3. New items in Survey Time 2......................................................................................... 50 2.6.4. Items repeated from Survey Time 1. ............................................................................ 51 3. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS .................................................................................................. 52 3.1. TIME 1 ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEW DATA ............................................................................... 52