In these years, corporations have valued the cooperation among departments in their organizations. Team members from cross-functional teams composed of different functional areas have frequent communication due to the need for cooperation and support by each other. A well-performed team relies on effective communication and such interactive behavior between team members. These team members come from different departments or functions, which results in the variations in team members¡¦ standpoint and ways of doing things, but these make the teams more flexible and diversified. On the other hand, each department¡¦s sectionalism and patterns of behavior by usual practices cause the cross-functional teams¡¦ barrier of communication. Thus, this study applies the concept about the classification of teams raised by Larson & Frank (1989), and to study the issue of teamwork effectiveness of cross-functional teams through the qualitative interview method, and further to bring up conclusion and suggestion towards cross-functional teamwork. This study considers the inter-dependence between cross-functional team members, need for innovation of team¡¦s task, and organizational support as three dimensions to generalize the managerial implications in the respect of the performance of teamwork. In sum, under general conditions, ¡§the autonomy of teamwork¡¨ and ¡§the clarity of team¡¦s task¡¨ both could be coordinated to improve the performance of teamwork, however , ¡§the trust among team members¡¨ is both a necessary factor and basis to facilitate the communication and coordination in cross-functional teams and on which teams could work smoothly. Corporate culture and team leader would also influence communication among team members, therefore organization should build a free, open, and respectful communication environment. In addition, organization should empower team members with enough authority which helps team members exert their influence while communicating with other department. Besides, as a vital role of guiding, facilitating, and coordinating cross-department cooperation, the team leader boosts team¡¦s morale, provides decision-making support, and motivate team members to achieve team¡¦s goal. If necessary, team leaders should make good use of their ability of coordination to raise team members¡¦ coherence to their team, and further to help team members to reach an agreement.

A produtividade e competitividade de empresas intensivas em capital é muito dependente do grau de utilização de sua capacidade industrial. Muitos indicadores têm sido utilizados para medir o desempenho da manufatura, dentre eles o Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Contudo, somente altos índices de OEE não garantem um desempenho superior em uma fábrica. Alguns autores sugerem que a adoção de indicadores com maior abrangência como o Overall Plant Effectiveness (OPE) é mais adequada à medição e análise do desempenho global da manufatura por contemplar a influência de outras áreas da organização sobre a utilização da capacidade de uma fábrica. Esta pesquisa discute a aplicação do OEE em empresas cuja competitividade depende fortemente da sua habilidade em racionalizar a utilização da capacidade industrial e explora indicadores derivados da sua utilização. Com este propósito é realizada uma revisão bibliográfica da literatura para identificar suas limitações, relacionar os indicadores derivados do OEE e caracterizá-los como ferramentas gerenciais que podem oferecer uma perspectiva mais global à medição do desempenho da utilização da capacidade. Além disto, um estudo de caso é desenvolvido em uma empresa processadora de alimentos para identificar como se pode envolver os diversos agentes responsáveis pelas perdas de capacidade de produção, inclusive aqueles que atual além da área de manufatura, para eliminação ou controle deste problema. O estudo mostra que a aplicação do OPE além do OEE pode tornar a detecção da causa raiz de problemas mais eficaz, além de induzir a integração da estratégia de produção com outras estratégias funcionais e desta forma promover o aumento do desempenho global da manufatura. / Process industries have to strive to attain high resource utilization so as to increase their productivity and competitiveness in the market. Many indicators have been used to measure their manufacturing performance, one of them is the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). However, high OEE values per se do not ensure superior global performance. Some authors suggest that the consideration of indicators with broader magnitude such as Overall Plant Effectiveness (OPE) is more appropriate to measure and analyze the overall manufacturing performance since it also reflects the impacts of support areas on a plant\'s capacity utilization. This research reviews the application of OEE in companies that depend heavily on the ability to rationalize the utilization of their production capacity and explores the use of indicators derived from it. With this purpose, a literature review is presented to identify the limitations of OEE, to enumerate indicators derived from OEE and characterize them as management tools that may offer a more global perspective to the measurement of capacity utilization. Moreover, a case study is developed in a food processing company to identify how the diverse agents responsible for the losses in production capacity including those who perform beyond the manufacturing function, can be involved in the effort to eliminate or control this problem. The study shows that the use of OPE besides OEE can make the detection of the root cause of problems more effective and induce the integration of manufacturing strategy with other functional strategies, and thus promote the increase of overall manufacturing performance.

In today's ever-changing, competitive business environment, cross-functional teams are an increasingly popular mechanism to implement major business transformations within multinationals. Yet empirical data (Kotter, 1995; Beer, Eisenstat and Spector, 1990; Beer, 2000; Stvetena and Damian, 2006) support for the prevailing view that such teams, unless they are well managed, lead to failure. By drawing on an in depth comparative study of one Pilot Team and four teams dedicated to marketing, sales and distribution transformation in two pharmaceutical companies, we examine under which internal conditions cross-functional teams dedicated to organizational change enable or hinder organizational change within multinational corporations. The findings suggest that they succeed best through high level coupling activities with the remainder of the organization during the early and the later phases of a project, when practicing shared leadership and when organized as a semi-structure. This study contributes to the literature on organizational change in transcending the paradoxical relationships between stability and change, to the literature on the practice-based approach in making more explicit the relationships between practices and organizations and provides implications for managers involved in major business transformations in multinational corporations.

A produtividade e competitividade de empresas intensivas em capital é muito dependente do grau de utilização de sua capacidade industrial. Muitos indicadores têm sido utilizados para medir o desempenho da manufatura, dentre eles o Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Contudo, somente altos índices de OEE não garantem um desempenho superior em uma fábrica. Alguns autores sugerem que a adoção de indicadores com maior abrangência como o Overall Plant Effectiveness (OPE) é mais adequada à medição e análise do desempenho global da manufatura por contemplar a influência de outras áreas da organização sobre a utilização da capacidade de uma fábrica. Esta pesquisa discute a aplicação do OEE em empresas cuja competitividade depende fortemente da sua habilidade em racionalizar a utilização da capacidade industrial e explora indicadores derivados da sua utilização. Com este propósito é realizada uma revisão bibliográfica da literatura para identificar suas limitações, relacionar os indicadores derivados do OEE e caracterizá-los como ferramentas gerenciais que podem oferecer uma perspectiva mais global à medição do desempenho da utilização da capacidade. Além disto, um estudo de caso é desenvolvido em uma empresa processadora de alimentos para identificar como se pode envolver os diversos agentes responsáveis pelas perdas de capacidade de produção, inclusive aqueles que atual além da área de manufatura, para eliminação ou controle deste problema. O estudo mostra que a aplicação do OPE além do OEE pode tornar a detecção da causa raiz de problemas mais eficaz, além de induzir a integração da estratégia de produção com outras estratégias funcionais e desta forma promover o aumento do desempenho global da manufatura. / Process industries have to strive to attain high resource utilization so as to increase their productivity and competitiveness in the market. Many indicators have been used to measure their manufacturing performance, one of them is the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). However, high OEE values per se do not ensure superior global performance. Some authors suggest that the consideration of indicators with broader magnitude such as Overall Plant Effectiveness (OPE) is more appropriate to measure and analyze the overall manufacturing performance since it also reflects the impacts of support areas on a plant\'s capacity utilization. This research reviews the application of OEE in companies that depend heavily on the ability to rationalize the utilization of their production capacity and explores the use of indicators derived from it. With this purpose, a literature review is presented to identify the limitations of OEE, to enumerate indicators derived from OEE and characterize them as management tools that may offer a more global perspective to the measurement of capacity utilization. Moreover, a case study is developed in a food processing company to identify how the diverse agents responsible for the losses in production capacity including those who perform beyond the manufacturing function, can be involved in the effort to eliminate or control this problem. The study shows that the use of OPE besides OEE can make the detection of the root cause of problems more effective and induce the integration of manufacturing strategy with other functional strategies, and thus promote the increase of overall manufacturing performance.

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Dans un monde de compétition économique en évolution constante, les équipes projets plurifonctionnelles constituent un outil de management apprécié pour mettre en place des transformations stratégiques majeures dans les multinationales. Cependant, de nombreuses études empiriques (Kotter, 1995; Beer, Eisenstat and Spector, 1990; Beer, 2000; Stvetena and Damian, 2006) montrent que ces équipes, à moins qu’elles ne soient bien gérées, conduisent à l’échec. A partir d’une étude comparative approfondie d’une équipe pilote et de quatre autres équipes dédiées à la transformation du marketing, de la vente et de la distribution, dans deux entreprises pharmaceutiques, nous examinons les conditions internes des équipes plurifonctionnelles dédiées au changement organisationnel au sein d’organisations multinationales. Les résultats montrent que ces équipes réussissent mieux lorsque qu’elles couplent leurs activités avec le reste de l’organisation dans la première phase et la dernière phase du projet, lorsqu’elles pratiquent un leadership partagé et lorsqu’elles sont organisées en semi-structures. Cette étude contribue à la littérature sur le changement organisationnel en transcendant les relations paradoxales entre stabilité et changement, à la littérature de l’approche par les pratiques en explicitant les relations entre les pratiques et les organisations, et propose des enseignements clés pour les managers impliqués dans des transformations majeures au sein d’entreprises multinationale / In today’s ever-changing, competitive business environment, cross-functional teams are an increasingly popular mechanism to implement major business transformations within multinationals. Yet empirical data (Kotter, 1995; Beer, Eisenstat and Spector, 1990; Beer, 2000; Stvetena and Damian, 2006) support for the prevailing view that such teams, unless they are well managed, lead to failure. By drawing on an in depth comparative study of one Pilot Team and four teams dedicated to marketing, sales and distribution transformation in two pharmaceutical companies, we examine under which internal conditions cross-functional teams dedicated to organizational change enable or hinder organizational change within multinational corporations. The findings suggest that they succeed best through high level coupling activities with the remainder of the organization during the early and the later phases of a project, when practicing shared leadership and when organized as a semi-structure. This study contributes to the literature on organizational change in transcending the paradoxical relationships between stability and change, to the literature on the practice-based approach in making more explicit the relationships between practices and organizations and provides implications for managers involved in major business transformations in multinational corporations.

Today, many organizations are facing an increased necessity to employ cross-functional teams. Its growing popularity is rooted in its positive impacts on innovation. Additionally, these teams are an excellent way of managing complex organizational tasks without the need for a significant modification of the existing organizational structure. Despite the benefits of the cross-functional team, the diversity in the profession and the specialized knowledge possessed by the team members lead to different thought worlds and perceptions, causing communication barriers. This is problematic because communication is needed to share, transfer, and create knowledge, which are the prerequisites of both individual and organizational learning. There is various literature on knowledge management and learning; however, our understanding of how knowledge interchanges in cross-functional teams remain limited. Therefore, this thesis conducts semi-structured interviews at five successful companies to examine the policies and procedures established by management to facilitate the interchange of knowledge in the organization. Also, it investigates the activities used by coordinators to maximize learning and create a sense of belonging in the cross-functional team. The findings of this study revealed several activities that could increase both the knowledge interchange and the team’s learning. First, it is preferred to have decent knowledge accessibility, where the bar to contact anyone is low. Second, it seems that knowledge receptivity has to be increased, which can be done by giving knowledge a meaning, using pictures, analogies, metaphors, Etc. Third, a frame of reference could be needed, where people can get into each other’s shoes through, for example, job rotations and learn each other’s jobspecific terminologies. Fourth, competition is preferred to be eliminated, which can be achieved by establishing a common team goal, removing internal bonuses, and eliminating ranking systems. Finally, it seemed essential to have cohesion in the group, which can be accomplished by having, for instance, afterworks, group travel activities, and collective organizational culture

In a growing digital economy, the possibilities for newly established companies are immense, and the market for innovative, disruptive products has grown exponentially. In this environment, single-person start-ups exist alongside billion-dollar organizations with thousands of employees. Somewhere in the middle, scale-ups have become an increasingly interesting topic of study as they can be seen as the "successful" start-ups that are experiencing the transitional challenges of establishing themselves in an increasingly competitive market. As fast-growing scale-ups juggle customer's demand for new, innovative products/services alongside investor's demand for a viable business model, a need for a fast and adaptive product/service development environment arises. Here the concept of cross-functional teams becomes increasingly interesting as a tool for facing the challenges that such scale-ups face. This paper is an exploratory case-study following a cross-functional team at a tech scale-up in the Stockholm region. The company currently inhabits the gaming market and offers B2C products/services to thousands of customers. This case study follows the cross-functional team from its early inception to the later stages of its progress. This paper draws conclusions for optimal conditions and success factors that allow for cross-functional teams to reach their full potential. Being a case study, this paper is also able to analyze how different contextual factors have implications on how crossfunctional teams operate. In the end, success factors are laid out, both generally and contextually, giving readers insights into the benefits and challenges that go hand-inhand with cross-functional teams at high growth scale-ups. / I en snabbväxande digital ekonomi är möjligheterna för nyetablerade bolag enorma. Efterfrågan efter innovativa och disruptiva produkter har vuxit exponentiellt. I denna miljö existerar det både små start-ups och miljardbolag med tusentals anställda. Någonstans i mitten mellan start-ups och miljardbolag finns det ett bolagsstadie som benämns scale-up. Scale-up kan ses som framgångsrika start-ups som handskas med de utmaningar som kommer med att snabbt växa och samtidigt konkurrera i en tuff marknad. Snabbväxande scale-ups behöver balansera kundernas efterfrågan för innovativa produkter/tjänster samtidigt som eventuella investerare kräver bevis på att företaget har en lönsam affärsmodell. För att uppfylla allt detta krävs det en snabb, innovativ och adaptiv utvecklingsmiljö för företagets produkter och tjänster. Crossfunctional teams är en intressant modell för att hantera några av de utmaningar som scale-ups står inför. Denna studie är en explorativ fall-studie som följer ett cross-functional team på en svensk scale-up i baserad i Stockholmsregionen. Företaget är en leverantör till gamingindustrin och erbjuder B2C produkter och tjänster till tusentals kunder. Dennastudie följer ett cross-functional team från initierandet av teamet och under flera veckors tid. Studien bidrar med slutsatser gällande vilka förutsättningar och framgångsfaktorer som bidrar till att ett cross-functional team kan uppnå sin fulla potential. Denna fall-studie bidrar också med insikter kring hur olika kontextuella faktorer påverkar arbetet för crossfunctional team. Slutligen, presenterar studien olika framgångsfaktorer, både generella och kontextuella för cross-functional teams. Studien bidrar även med insikter gällande de olika fördelarna och utmaningarna som uppkommer om man arbetar med crossfunctional teams.

Under de senaste decennierna har hantering av leverantörsrelationer blivit en viktig konkurrensfaktor för företag världen över. Denna uppsats kommer delvis att presentera teorin bakom hantering av leverantörsrelationer och integrera den med värdesamskapande vilket är ytterligare en viktig aspekt för företag som önskar att implementera ett vinn-vinn-tänk med sina samarbetspartners. Studien har genomförts på inköpsavdelningen på Valmet i Karlstad med syfte att identifiera vad som är värdeskapande i ett leverantörsförhållande. Den empiriska datan har analyserats för att sedan omvandlas till aktiviteter som kan appliceras i ett tidigt skede av en produkt/projektcykel. Detta leder in på Design to Cost vilket utgör den tredje och sista grunden för litteraturstudien av detta arbete.   Denna studie inleddes med en litteraturstudie, med fokus på de tre huvudämnena; hantering av leverantörsrelationer, värdesamskapande och Design to Cost. Denna studie sammanställdes sedan i ett teoretiskt ramverk som följdes upp med en kvalitativ datainsamling. Semistrukturerade intervjuer användes under två olika delar av studien, först intervjuades anställda på Valmet i Karlstad och därefter företagets leverantörer. Under analysen jämfördes insamlad data med det teoretiska ramverket.   Resultaten visar att värdesamskapande i studiens kontext främst bygger på kommunikation och tillit. Det är också viktigt att veta i vilken fas involveringen av leverantörer bör uppnås. Eftersom det här är en studie som fokuserar på Design to Cost, rekommenderas det att involvera leverantörerna i ett tidigt skede. Som ett resultat ökar antalet möjligheter och samarbetet är mindre begränsat av tekniska designbeslut etc.   De identifierade aktiviteterna från analysen har prioriterats i en matris och en rekommendation har skapats delvis till Valmet, men också till liknande branscher. Eftersom resultatet bygger på empirisk data analyserad ur ett teoretiskt perspektiv, kan det därför motiveras att lösningarna är generella i en viss utsträckning och därmed tillämpbara i andra kontext. Aktiviteterna har delats in i 4 teman; kommunikation, samarbete, informationsdelning och kategorisering. Förslagen på aktiviteter berör bland annat utbildning, uppföljning och återkoppling, intern benchmarking, utvecklingsplaner, tvärfunktionella team, kvalitetssäkring, prognostisering, kostnadsnedbrytning samt kategorisering av leverantörer/kund och produkter. / In recent decades supply relationship management have become a competitive factor for companies worldwide. This master thesis will partly address the theory of supply relationship management and integrate it with value co-creation, which is an additional important aspect for companies wanting to implement a win-win thinking with their collaborative partners. The study have been conducted at the purchasing department at Valmet in Karlstad with the purpose of identifying value creation in a supplier relationship. The empirical data have been analyzed to represent activities that can be applied in an early stage of a product/project cycle. This leads to Design to Cost, which constitutes the third and last foundation for the literature study of this work.   This study started with a literature review, focusing on the three main subjects; supply relationship management, value co-creation and Design to Cost. This review was then concluded by a theoretical framework and followed up with a qualitative data collection. Semi-structured interviews were used in two different parts of the study, first with employees at Valmet in Karlstad and then with their suppliers. During the analysis the data was compared to the established theoretical framework.   The results show that value co-creating in the study's context is based foremost on communication and trust. It is also important to know at what phase the involvement should be accomplished. As this is a study focusing on Design to Cost it is recommended to involve the suppliers at an early stage. As a result more opportunities are given and the cooperation is less restrained by any technical design decisions etc.   The identified activities from the analysis have been prioritized and a recommendation have been created partly to Valmet, but also to similar industries. As the result is based on empirical data analyzed from a theoretical perspective, it can therefore be justified that the solutions are general to a certain extent and thus applicable in other contexts. The activities have been divided into 4 themes; communication, collaboration, information sharing and categorization. For instance, the proposals for activities concern education, follow-ups and feedback, internal benchmarking, development plans, cross-functional teams, quality assurance, forecasts, cost breakdown as well as categorization of supplier/customer and products.