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Comparison of intelligent CSCW architectures for the evaluation of agile manufacturing systems designs
Author(s) -
Monplaisir Leslie F.,
Riordan Catherine,
Benjamin Colin O.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
human factors and ergonomics in manufacturing and service industries
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.408
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1520-6564
pISSN - 1090-8471
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1520-6564(199921)9:2<137::aid-hfm1>3.0.co;2-3
Subject(s) - computer supported cooperative work , agile software development , agile manufacturing , multidisciplinary approach , computer science , knowledge management , decision support system , quality (philosophy) , process management , engineering management , systems engineering , work (physics) , engineering , software engineering , artificial intelligence , social science , mechanical engineering , sociology , philosophy , epistemology
Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) or Group Decision Support System (GDSS) can provide an efficient decision‐making environment for multidisciplinary teams faced with the challenge of evaluating agile manufacturing systems. In this article, we describe the development and evaluation of CSCW prototypes to aid the systematic evaluation of agile manufacturing systems. An industrial case study involving the evaluation of alternative design configurations of a cellular manufacturing system for agile manufacturing was used for testing with 12 multidisciplinary student teams. The results obtained suggest that engineering design teams can obtain productivity improvements through the use of CSCW tools. In this study, we also found that an enhanced GDSS with a neural network module for preference aggregation outperformed a basic CSCW in: (1) decision quality, (2) users' satisfaction and agreement, and (3) consensus. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.