Hitachi--pioneering a "factory" strategy and structure for large-scale software development
INTRODUCTION This paper is part of a larger study examining the question of whether or not companies are choosing to manage a complex engineering activity such as large-scale software development with a range of strategic considerations and organizational as well as technological approaches that corresponds to the spectrum usually associated with "hard" manufacturing, i.e. job shops, batch organizations, and factories exhibiting various degrees of flexibility in product mixes and technologies. The research project includes the proposal of technology and policy criteria defining what a factory environment for software might look like; a survey of 38 software facilities in the U.S. and Japan to determine where firms stand in relation to these criteria; and detailed case studies examining the technology and policy implementation process followed at firms identified as being close to the factory model. ' There are several interrelated conclusions: (1) This spectrum, including "factory" approaches, is clearly observable in the sample of software facilities in the U.S. and Japan. (2) There appears to be nothing inherent in software as a technology that prevents some firms from creating strategies and organizational structures to manage product and process development more effectively, even with a relatively new and complex technology such as software. (3) The basic technological infrastructures to aid software process management are not significantly different between Japanese and U.S. firms.