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APPENDIX A INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE I. DEFINITION We understand "integration" to mean: having an information structure supporting a free flow of all information resident in the system to any part of the system as needed. The information stream can continually grow and be enriched while supporting all required functions throughout the organization and during the life of the product. Functions supported include finance, marketing, sales, quality, product engineering, and production operations. The committee is mainly concerned with the relationship between product engineering and production and the improvement of communications and understanding on both sides of the interface. Do you generally agree with the definition and is this a key objective in your company plans? What role does the design manufacturing interaction play? II. THE PLANNING PROCESS Why are you pursuing integration? How does it serve your business plans? 3. How did you plan and organize for integration? 4. What is the scope of your integration project? Does include organization elements outside of design and manufacturing production? 5. How long do you think it will take to essentially achieve integration? III. EXECUTION OF THE PLAN 6. What start-up problems have you encountered? 47
48 7. Were there efforts that were easily or quickly achieved? 8. Do you have any unique circumstances that have affected execution of your plan? IV. DATA BASE CONTENTS - 9. How much of the design is done through une of CAD? That is, what part of design output is represented digitally compared to drawings? 10. Have you found it necessary to use artificial intelligence in order to effectively access or couple data bases? 11. How is change control maintained in design and manufacturing production? Who is allowed to introduce changes? 12. Is the master schedule directly tied into the CAD/CAM data base so that design changes are automatically communicated to the production organizations? V. ORGANIZATION 13. Have you changed or do you plan to change organizationally as a result of your integration efforts? How do you judge the effect of such changes on company or division performance? 14. Have you found it necessary to provide special training? VI. MEASURES OF PROGRESS 15. Will you meet your objectives as perceived in the plan? On schedule? 16. How do you measure progress? Are the perceptions different at various levels or parts of the organization?