Knowledge sharing in engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing enterprises.

Sharing Knowledge is considered an important part of managing new product development (NPD) research on the process of NPD and Knowledge Management methods have influenced industry in various ways. For example the management of the NPD process, the use of tools, techniques and the organisation of teams, and the integration of the marketing and manufacturing have resulted in considerable progress within NPD process. Prior studies on the NPD problems have delivered various models of the NPD process and a variety of supporting methods, tools and techniques in a generic context. A more realistic scenario however, is to consider the needs of firms that develop products on a Make-to-Order (MTO) or Engineer-to-Order (ETO) basis.The research methodology adopted was based on extracting a preliminary ETO model supported by variety of Knowledge Management methods, tools and techniques from the review of literature. To examine the applicability of these models and methods and also the influential factors on the NPD process a survey by questionnaire and structured interviews in UK industrial companies was carried out. Findings were bound together to provide a generic model of the ETO process and a framework for the knowledge sharing on the specific needs of ETO manufacturing companies. IDEFO technique was used to develop the preliminary and the generic models.The objective of this research is to construct a structured and practical framework for supporting the opportunity for knowledge sharing within one-off projects. The knowledge sharing framework referred to as 'Sharing-ETO-Knowledge' (SETOK) was translated into a computer program using the "MS Visio' enterprise modelling systems. It was examined by applying the system program to the data of the two cases that had been obtained at the case study stage. The framework has been fruitful in the provision of a guideline for the implementation of the knowledge sharing in various NPD-ETO projects.The SETOK framework may be viewed as a practical, robust generic tool to assess the process performance of ETO manufacturing projects. The outcome of this study would help ETO manufacturing companies in their knowledge sharing and decision making processes with regards to NPD-ETO manufacturing projects.