Integration Efforts Involving Different Data Sources within One Organization
b. Devlin Electronics: Tracking Production Schedules (Goodhue et al., 1992)
Goodhue et al. (1992) analyze the case in Devlin Electronics: when on-time deliveries in Devlin Electronics fell to only 70 percent, a multi-disciplinary team used organization-wide integrated scheduling data to track how production schedules were developed, changed, and adjusted by the different groups involved. They found a number of interrelated problems such as not properly updating inventory levels and equipment conditions at some plants, schedule overridden by marketing, neglecting plant capabilities and critical order requirements, etc.. By using organization- wide integrated scheduling data, Devlin Electronics understood its problems and then took corrective action. As a result, on-time delivery increased from 70 percent to 98 percent.