The strength and success of a team depends on how well each individual can contribute the maximum benefit of their skills to a consolidated and shared vision of the total group. The different backgrounds, experiences, and environments of the individuals inevitably influence their views and interpretations of the overall objectives. Hence, as soon as people from differ- ent disciplines and backgrounds try to work together, there is potential for misunderstanding or lack of awareness of the needs and interdependencies of each individual contributor. This is true even in small, co-located teams where individuals meet regularly to discuss overall project requirements and progress. It is clearly a far greater problem when teams are large and physically located in different companies or even different countries (see Figure 1).
A simple example, taken from the earliest demonstrations of moderators, may serve to il- lustrate the problem. The earliest specification of a moderator (Harding & Popplewell, 1996) was demonstrated in a case study examining the design of a shaft for an electrical machine.
The shaft is initially designed primarily for its function, namely to carry and rotate copper windings rotating at high speed while being supported in bearings at each end. A set of form features are designed into the shaft to attach windings, to rest in bearings, and to transmit rotation into or out of the machine. These features mainly include cylindrical sections, steps, tapers, bearing surfaces, and keyways. The designer was an expert in the functional design of electrical machines, but not in manufacturing technology, and included in his design a step between cylindrical sections. This precisely met his functional needs, but cannot be machined by conventional methods: The transition between the smaller radius and the radial face must itself have a fillet radius of at least the size of the cutting tool used. The designer has thus, through lack of knowledge of the manufacturing issues, designed an impossible, or at least extremely expensive, feature into the product.
The manufacturing engineer subsequently looks at the design and, without full understand- ing of the functional reasons for the step, plans to simply use the smallest available tool
Figure 1. Awareness is critical to project success
to machine the step, thus introducing a fillet to the design. If the precise surface transition was essential to function (e.g., as a thrust-bearing surface), we now have a design which is manufacturable but which either will not work, or will cause rapid wear—again with expensive consequences.
If the functional designer and manufacturing engineer are physically co-located and are constantly communicating, there is a reasonable chance that such design conflicts will be identified as they arise. This does, however, require the two contributors to know when to raise a design issue with the other: Each does not have the other’s expertise, but has suf- ficient knowledge of the broad categories of issues which are critical to the other to know when to consult.
However, if the design team is geographically distributed, and this is increasingly the case, the members have little opportunity for informal communication, and in consequence they rely on formal systems transferring design authority between disciplines. This formalises the points in time when communication occurs, but if a design conflict is introduced a long time before the next formal review point, much expensive work may already have built upon the controversial design decision, and resolution is slow and expensive. The loss of informal communication also reduces the opportunities for team members to gain understanding and knowledge of the kinds of design decisions which can conflict with the interests of other design team members. Thus, the probability of identifying a design conflict quickly and cheaply is greatly reduced.
In this early demonstration, the engineering moderator (EM) was monitoring the design pro- cess, by examining each design decision as it was committed to the design database. When the radius step was introduced to the functional design, the EM, using its own knowledge of the issues important to the manufacturing of shafts, recognised that a potential conflict had arisen, and notified the manufacturing engineer that he should examine the design.
Subsequently, when he introduced a fillet radius to accommodate the tool, the EM, now
Figure 2. Stages of moderation of shaft design
A C B
D
Design of part of a shaft.
A
C B
D
Stage 1:
Functional Requirement is a Step.
A
C B
D
Stage 2:
Manufacturing Requirements introduce a radius at C.
A
C B
D
Stage 3:
Compromise is to introduce an undercut.
using knowledge of issues important to functional shaft design, recognised the potential for conflict and alerted the functional designer. This dialogue driven by the moderator led to a mutually-acceptable undercut design, as demonstrated in Figure 2.
This is, of course, a fairly trivial example of a moderator application and merely serves to illustrate the principle. It is also specific to the product design process, which, historically, was the domain where a moderator was first developed. An important characteristic dem- onstrated by this example is that the moderator does not have any design knowledge itself, but it does have knowledge about each contributing designer and knowledge of what is important for the application of their knowledge. In order to have the flexibility to capture knowledge about the knowledge used by a wide range of contributors to the design team, the moderator had to have a generic structure able to apply an evolving base of knowledge from a wide range of disciplines. Subsequent research has investigated the application of the same principles of knowledge structuring and the same generic moderation process, illustrated in Figure 3, in a variety of fields besides product design, including for example, global manufacturing systems (supply chain) design, and operational management of global manufacturing systems.
Figure 3. The generic moderation process
CategoriseDecision
Retrieve.Related.Information
Compare.to.Relevant.Thresholds
Stop Trigger.
Response
Application.of
.
Moderator
.
Knowledge
.
Application.of
.
Moderator.
Knowledge
.
From..Project..Database Detection.of.New.Decision.
Interested.Agents.Informed.of.Conflict Interested.AgentsIdentified
Application.of.Detailed.
Knowledge.About.Agents.
Inform.
Agent.
1
Inform.
Agent.
2
Inform.
Agent.
3
Inevitably, organisations using a moderator will not have explicit knowledge of the full range of possible issues, and this may lead to decision conflicts at the time of the initial implementation of a moderator. Hence, a newly-implemented moderator cannot be fully populated with knowledge: Indeed we can argue that as the moderator knowledge base is derived from experience, it can never be complete. Manufacturing organisations are con- stantly changing, as new products are developed addressing new markets and technologies, and so we can also expect that the range of collaborators (and their domains of expertise) will change over time, requiring the moderator knowledge base to constantly evolve. It is therefore essential that any moderator is built around a very flexible knowledge structure, which can be constantly updated by its users, both directly and through the application of knowledge discovery tools.
This chapter will discuss how moderators can support the global organisation and project team to achieve their goals while reducing remoteness arising from distributing the team, and promoting exchange of information between team members at different physical locations.
Moderators support individuals to perform their individual roles from positions of strength and understanding, with raised awareness of the needs of other contributors. Moderators also support individuals’ preferred methods of working while still understanding the needs of both individuals and the total team.
The technological approaches to implementing effective moderators are also examined. A flexible knowledge structure is necessary to allow moderator knowledge to evolve, and the moderator must be able to support the collaboration of independent enterprises, sharing knowledge where this is of mutual advantage, while maintaining security and confidential- ity of knowledge and information as needed. A number of potential moderator application areas in manufacturing industry will be identified, although application areas from outside the manufacturing domain can also benefit from moderator technologies.