Technology and Work Organization in Mechanical Engineering (NIFA-Panel: 7th Wave 1997)

Company profile, product structure, technology deployment in the company,
qualification, personnel structure, production structure, work organization
in production among small and medium-sized companies doing business
in the area of mechanical engineering.
Topics:
company profile:
company type;
number of production locations;
branch locations and their influence on decisions in one's company;
proportion of tensile processing in production;
in-house production and out-sourced processing in production;
previous and expected turnover development, personnel development,
profit development and development of demand;
judgement on the uniqueness of organization of departments in the business
and of written documentation for company-internal rules;
judgement on distribution of leadership duties among various colleagues and
different levels;
judgement on the current profit situation of the company and
economic situation of mechanical engineering over-all;
current order backlog;
volume of turnover 1996;
percentages of finished product groups based on individual orders,
framework orders as well as without specific order;
changes in responsibility of individual company areas in the last three years;
areas of cooperation with other companies and
extent of influence of cooperation partner.
Customer and supplier relations:
rank order of competitive strategies for current and new markets;
extent of influence of suppliers and customers;
total number of customers of the company in the last year;
number of steady customers and their proportion in total turnover;
customer structure and their proportion of turnover;
dependence of the company on a few large customers
with long-term delivery relations;
further processing of delivered products by customers;
delivery at regular time intervals;
possibility for customers to change composition of shipments on short notice;
responsibility of project groups for cooperation with customers.
Product structure:
characterization of company as producer of finished products or
producer of individual parts;
proportion of production of standard products and
production according to customer specification;
introduction of innovative products;
assessment of future development of product structure, stockpile production,
the length of economic life of the products, fluctuations in load,
proportion of purchased 3rd-party services, the number of emergency orders,
the time through the production process as well as
delivery of products according to the just-in-time-principle (scale).
Use of technology in the company:
information on all work processes supported by
computer-aided technologies and procedures in the company.
Personnel structure:
number of colleagues in production and management as well as
information on their degree of qualification;
moving personnel around within the individual business areas (scale);
employees newly hired as well as leaving in the last year.
Production structure:
proportion of mass production, small- and
large-scale production as well as one-of-a-kind production;
proportion of production by company;
reasons for transferring production orders to 3rd parties as well as
into the company;
characterization of technology equipment in production;
capacity usage in the last year, relative to machines and personnel.
Work organization in production:
extent of activities taken care of by machine operators and
workshop personnel in individual work processes;
group work in the area of production;
number of work groups;
organization structure and general characterization of work groups.
Business profile:
(majority) owner of the enterprise to which the company belongs and
activity of the owner in company management;
change of owner in the last three years;
existence of "sister companies" and their influence on decisions in company;
extent of influence of company headquarters on decisions in individual areas.