Rule-based modelling of dependencies among activities in collaborative partnership
by Driss Essabbar; Marc Zolghadri; Maria Zrikem; Abderrahman Ayadi
J. of Design Research (JDR), Vol. 12, No. 1/2, 2014

Abstract: Companies have to work with their partners to improve their competitiveness and productivity. In some cases, they may find themselves in an uncomfortable situation owing to the imbalance of power with partners that could even threaten the survival of the weakest firms. The analysis of dependency between partners is a pertinent key to understanding the behaviour of each member and its influence on the global strategy of firms. This paper contains exploratory results to model dependencies between activities of a process. The chosen process used for illustrative purposes is the product development process. Once the concept of dependency is defined, we propose a structured set of rules that enable formalising of the dependency relationships between activities. These dependency relations are then interpreted as the dependencies among partners and they define constraints that must be known from the beginning of a product development project. The results of this presented study have also implications for managers and practitioners, because it could provide a deeper understanding concerning the factors from which organisations' dependency stems.

Online publication date: Sat, 26-Jul-2014

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