Managing Late Changes in a Global Developing and Manufacturing Organisation

Abstract

Our world is changing faster and faster, hence organisations have to adapt to these ever-changing circumstances. The changing environment calls for shorter development cycles which are flexible and adaptable to late changes. Furthermore, in the context of the automotive industry, the development of a vehicle is entailed with long lead-times and complex problem solving, in both the manufacturing and development process, which contradicts the market behaviour. The thesis investigates how a developing and manufacturing organisation can respond to rapid changing customer demands. A case study was conducted at the Manufacturing Engineering department at the R&D and innovation centre CEVT, which is a company delivering technological solutions to the Geely Groups automotive manufacturers. By combining the empirical study at CEVT with the four literature areas Dynamic capabilities, Ambidexterity, Agile Methodologies, and Beyond Budgeting a deeper understanding was created for how an organisation can manage late changes. Hereby, following improvement suggestions were identified: