Computer Assisted Collaboration in the Automotive Industry: What Are the Complex Problems and How Are Decisions Made?

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Market forces are driving the automotive industry toward shorter design times, shorter order fulfillment cycles, and fewer labor hours in final assembly. To cope with these changes, automotive supply chains are becoming more diverse, and their information environments more complex. Our research program has been studying how automotive supply chains are adapting to these realities. Our view is that the most robust, adaptable, and powerful information exchange systems will prove to be those which combine automated processing for activities that are routine and predictable, with transactions that are assisted by information technology, but which are, ultimately, human activities.