Virtual Organizations How They Apply to the Army Acquisition Corps

1、usawc strategy research project virtual organizations: how they apply to the army acquisition corps by james r. hunt dr. jerry davis project advisor the views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the department of defense or any of its agencies.

2、 this document may not be released for open publication until it has been cleared by the appropriate military service or government agency. u.s. army war college carlisle barracks, pennsylvania 17013 ii iii abstract author:james r. hunt, iii title:virtual organizations: how they apply to the army ac

3、quisition corps format:strategy research project date:01 april 1998 pages: 34 classification: unclassified this study focuses on the state of virtual teams and organizations within industry and the army today. it examines the theory, enabling technology, and research that is being conducted to devel

4、op an understanding of what leadership can do to help virtual teams function effectively and efficiently. recommendations are made throughout the document on which models, tools, and management principles leaders of the acquisition workforce should consider. iv v table of contents abstract .iii pref

5、ace .vii virtual organizations: how they apply to the army acquisition corps .1 introduction .1 virtual organization practice within industry today .4 just-in-time inventory and manufacturing .5 agile manufacturing .5 inventory-replacement and point of sale .6 product development .7 virtual team pra

6、ctice within department of the army today .9 acquisition web pages .9 project management office example .10 the standard procurement system .14 enabling technologies .15 security .16 changes required in organizational structure .20 management skills required .22 conclusions and recommendations .26 b

7、ibliography .33 vi vii preface i would like to express deep appreciation to a number of individuals who have provided assistance or guidance on this study. first, i would like to thank professor william w. cooper, university of texas at austin graduate school of business, who provided me the researc

8、h topic and sparked my interest in virtual organizations. tracor aerospace, inc in austin, tx allowed me access to their personnel and resources. dr. jagdish mathur, principal scientist, advanced programs division served as the industry liaison to the center for professional development and training

9、. mr. paul lindsey, vice president of engineering and mr. eric hoenes, principal scientist for the analysis and applied research division, provided me reference materials on enabling technologies in agile manufacturing and lean logistics. they also encouraged me to focus on the people dynamics of vi

10、rtual organizations as opposed to being totally focused on technology. i am indebted to mr. edward bair, deputy program executive officer intelligence electronic warfare and sensors and to mr. william hayden, project manager signals warfare for making it possible to attend the senior service fellows

11、hip program at ut. finally, this paper is dedicated to my wife ms. jane deis and my son jordan deis, who have done all the work at home in virginia for ten months while i was a geographical bachelor in austin, tx. they have given me their continuous support and encouragement. viii virtual organizati

12、ons: how they apply to the army acquisition corps introduction in time, virtual teams will become the “natural way,” and not the exception. virtual teams and networks will be effective, value-based, swiftly reconfiguring, high performance, cost sensitive and decentralized and will profoundly reshape

13、 our shared world. as members of many virtual groups, we will all contribute to the changing webs of relationships that will weave together our future in these forms of socio-economic organizations. to ensure a common understanding of the terms “virtual team” and “virtual organization”, the followin

14、g definitions will apply: a virtual team, like every team, is a group of people who interact through interdependent tasks guided by a common set of purposes. unlike a conventional team, a virtual team works across space, time, and organizational boundaries (and does so at high speed) with changing l

15、inks altered by webs of communication technologies.1 a virtual organization is an organization where people or facilities that are not part of the formal legally defined organization are linked together and operate as an integrated 2 decision-making unit. a virtual organization can have a cohesive s

16、tructure, tightly knit with computer networks, but be scattered geographically and organizationally.2 why do army acquisition corps (aac) leaders and managers need to care about virtual teams and organizations? some factors for consideration are: as a result of downsizing within department of the ar

17、my there are fewer people and less resources to do the same job. for many organizations, people are already geographically dispersed and management needs to be concerned whether they are working effectively and efficiently. boundary crossing between formal organizations is occurring every day. the o

18、rganization management must be concerned about this and try to control it (by some means) and also ensure the technology is present to facilitate these crossings. integrated product teams (ipts) are the way army acquisition business is conducted today. for a virtual ipt, there needs to be concern ab

19、out how to move them quickly to level 4: forming, storming, norming and performing. 3 managers and leaders need to understand acquisition business processes and state, “here is what i want to do. what tools will allow me to accomplish this?” either the answer to this question will guide the plan for

20、 information technology (it) purchases or the team will be stuck with the tools they have. this will force managers to determine how best to use the tools rather than how best to do the job at hand. another factor is the retention of organizational knowledge. as the nation moves from the industrial

21、age to the information age that will carry it into the 21st century, leaders need to realize that knowledge is a valuable resource. “the cybercorp needs a knowledge infrastructure to capture and create knowledge, store it, improve it, clarify it, disseminate it to all employees, and put it to use”.3

22、 this holds true for the acquisition corps as well. the corps does not have the resources of time or people to waste relearning lessons already learned by our colleagues. a management problem that needs to be addressed is how to get people around the country comfortable and confident with logging in

23、 every day to solicit and contribute advice to people they may never see and meet. what tools and concepts exist or need to be 4 developed to establish this degree of comfort and confidence? leaders and managers within the acquisition corps need to care so they can guide, plan, and program for futur

24、e it requirements. they should begin to care about the people of the acquisition workforce who will operate as participants on these virtual teams. it will take time, training, attention, and senior level commitment to effect the necessary changes. especially difficult will be the cultural changes n

25、eeded for the acquisition workforce to accomplish its work effectively and efficiently. please keep this quote in mind: “its 90 percent culture change and 10 percent technology. you cannot drive this change through technology and technology budgets. its people who bring about the change.”4 virtual o

26、rganization practice within industry today there are several ways industry can use virtual organizations. here the focus is on ways they can establish relationships with their customers and suppliers. boundaries (including interfaces with suppliers, partners, and customers) are likely to be vague an

27、d fluid. the following concrete examples suggest ways that tasks and processes could begin to be accomplished by the acquisition work force if they could be cost beneficially adapted to improve effectiveness and efficiency: 5 just-in-time inventory and manufacturing toyota cars have several thousand

28、 parts provided by several hundred suppliers. these suppliers deliver parts not only just in time but also on pallets in the right sequence for production, even though the production mix changes constantly with thousands of variations. such coordination requires supplier computers to have up-to-the-

29、minute knowledge of toyotas state of production in addition to participation in the planning process. when parts are used, the toyota computers signal the supplier computers to deliver the next batch and indicate the sequence of items in the batch.5 such strategies are having several impacts. for ex

30、ample, general motors, ford, and chrysler all require suppliers to be on their electronic data interchange (edi) network and will not deal with suppliers who are not interconnected in this fashion. general electric has just announced that it will now also follow their practice. secondly, these compa

31、nies are choosing to deal with fewer suppliers, ones they can trust to deliver a quality part so that incoming inspection is not required. these suppliers will be used over a long period of time as long as the supplier continues to meet the delivery and quality requirements. agile manufacturing the

32、term agile manufacturing is used to describe manufacturing done by networks of partners who share core 6 competencies, rather than merely supply components. agile manufacturing is replacing both mass production and japanese- style lean manufacturing. it is a response to the changing marketplace in w

33、hich customers want more choices, customization, and solutions rather than off-the-shelf products.6 inventory-replacement and point of sale what enabled wal-mart to grow from a small niche retailer to the worlds largest retailer? it analyzed its strategic value streams and identified the inventory-r

34、eplacement value stream as critical to meeting its goal: get goods on the shelves at the lowest price possible. to achieve that goal they invested in a sophisticated logistics system that took data from the cash register (point of sale) and sent it to the distribution centers and to 4,000 vendors. i

35、n some cases, wal-mart built computerized links to suppliers so that those suppliers themselves could replenish the wal-mart shelves.7 in essence, instead of distributing logistics to units at a low level whether they were needed or not, the new system uses information technology (it) to identify lo

36、gistics requirements in real time and moves supplies to exactly the points where they are needed. logistics in this kind of arrangement is also ideally suited for skip-echelonning and other forms of flattening. this could be suited to the army where many command levels do nothing more than process a

37、nd pass on logistics information. perhaps 7 this wal-mart type of distribution system would not be as lean as it is for a commercial retailer, but the army could nonetheless realize substantial efficiencies.8 it could also increase its effectiveness by reducing the response time via such a directed

38、logistics arrangement that could eliminate whole layers of intensive processes and paper work. researchers exploring the revolution in military logistics may want to examine these possibilities along with many other ideas on how to better support weapon systems in the future and lower total life cyc

39、le cost. product development the story that follows is one example of a virtual team that developed a ncr worldmark computer server and got it to market four months ahead of schedule. it is the story about how ncr with losses of $722 million in 1995 was returned to profitability, and could report op

40、erating income of $29 million by the third quarter of 1996. the story is condensed from the book virtual teams (lipnack and stamps, 1997, 78-85): worldmark is a great example of a globally distributed, cross-organizational virtual team. guided by a clear purpose, the team used the most advanced comm

41、unication links that we have encountered in the course of our research. .roberson chief technology officer and ncr senior vice president declares, “in projects like these, there is always a characteristic lack of trust and possible sources of confusion, particularly when you have groups in different

42、 time zones. the boundary lines between groups are not always clear. youve got existing groups 8 and existing emotions and the challenge is to make everyone feel like part of the same organization.” one solution was the worm hole, which is in robersons words, “video conferencing taken to its logical

43、 next step. it is a continuously open lease line so that you can have a meeting any time you want to. with the high performance of the link, its just like being there.” they went so far as to make the grain of the wood on the table the same at both sites and angled the cameras so the desk at one sit

44、e blends into the table at the other, so that the feeling of being there was created. each of the screens in the worm hole served a different purpose. one showed the people at the other end. another was the equivalent of an overhead projector that electronically projects foils onto the screen. the t

45、hird was a standard pc monitor that facilitated information sharing and distribution. “.the next step is even more amazing and more desirable”, roberson says. “when the rooms are not being used for meetings, the doors are left open and people do in fact meet in the hall.” .many different modes of co

46、mmunication were used. the voicemail system was enhanced to allow people to send a single message to any subgroup of the team or, if appropriate, the entire team. in addition to the worm hole, the team used traditional video conferences and desktop video conferencing for smaller groups of people nee

47、ding to interact or collaborate. e-mail with the capability of sending attached files of documentation was available to everyone. although the entire group did not ever come together face-to-face, roberson continues to say, “with all this wonderful technology and shared information, they still dont

48、replace the need to get together with the whole team at a particular site and communicate with them on whats going on, on what the direction is, and on the importance of their contributions.” there also was a comprehensive planning and project management system that kept information flowing to the r

49、ight people at the right time. using what it calls its “global realization process,” the team was able to track and measure its progress monthly, weekly, and even daily. 9 worldmark paid attention to its need for physical connections with face-to-face, audio, video, and computer media. the program m

50、anagers set action items, articulated processes, and blazed new pathways for boundary- crossing interactions using its global realization process. they laid the basis for strong trusting relationships that developed over time as people worked together. i believe this is a good example of how virtual

51、 teams can be used by the acquisition workforce; particularly by peos, pms, and personnel from their supporting research and development engineering center (rdec) and materiel management command (mmc), the procuring contract office, prime contractors and major subcontractors, test and evaluation per

52、sonnel, tradoc system managers, and combat developers. this same connectivity can be extended to the team members in the pentagon, to force integration staff officer (fiso) at sarda, the department of the army system coordinator (dasc) at dcsops, and the army acquisition executive (aae). virtual tea

53、m practice within department of the army today acquisition web pages certainly the army has invested heavily in information technology (it) over the last ten years. it is now common practice for persons in the acquisition program to have a computer on their desk, and many that travel frequently take

54、 a 10 portable computer to read their e-mail and do other work. pages have been created on the world wide web which provide the acquisition workforce valuable information such as current instructions, regulations, and policy.9 there is also information to help the acquisition workforce better manage

55、 careers, such as a training opportunity site and links to other helpful sites.10 for personnel working on source selections in which past performance is a criteria, the armys automated past performance system was implemented on october 1, 1997 and is available to approved users via the web.11 these

56、 few examples help to demonstrate that the army acquisition senior leadership understands the importance of sharing information and how to keep pace with technology to make the aac a more effective and efficient virtual organization. project management office example project manager signals warfare

57、(pm sw), part of program executive officer, intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, (peoiew they will be geographically diverse and boundary 15 crossing (both army and dod) with links strengthened by communication technologies.16 the vision does not stop at paperless contracting but continues

58、to virtual acquisition, which has the goal of linking the requiring organizations to the contracting system.17 using electronic commerce technology and a virtual contracting web site, users will be able to order through electronic catalogs and electronic shopping malls.18 enabling technologies as ev

59、ident from the above examples, advances in information and communication technologies have supported the evolution of virtual organizations and teams. in march 1997, pascal sieber wrote: in order to be practical, the information and communication system in virtual organization should minimally provi

60、de: 1. high speed networks within and outside a corporations own site for file transfer and e-mail, 2. electronic organization and communication of unstructured data with opportunities for response as in “groupware.” to facilitate the virtual organizations (vo) and teams development further, the inf