INGENIEUR
Globalisation of Engineering Design in the 21 st
century
As a consequence of the developments in
the global trade, markets and finance, by the
end of the 20 th century the world arrived at a
fundamentally new junction. For the first time the
globalisation process became applied to the very
source of wealth creation: the intellectual activity
that creates added value by inventing, designing,
manufacturing and marketing new products. Lynn
and Salzman [4] describe this transition and
introduce the concept of the ‘new globalisation of
engineering’.
Lynn and Salzman [4] start by pointing out that
in the second half of the 20 th century, “the typical
multinational (MNE) was vertically integrated
and hierarchically organised. Key functions were
headquartered in one of the triad economies of
the US, Japan or Europe. In the case of technology
development, for example, more basic R&D
work might be conducted by central research
laboratories, with more applied work done at
triad production facilities. Some engineering
activities were conducted in emerging economies,
but these had little to do with the core engineering
programmes of the firm.”
Of course, some engineering design activities
necessarily took place locally. However, the nature
of such activities were specific and restricted. Lynn
and Salzman [4] give the example of a Whirlpool
facility in India, where “washing machines were
redesigned to keep out rats, to survive shipment
on bad roads, and to cope with power ebbs and
surges in electrical current”. They further assert
that engineering managers at an electronics firm
in India “did not consider doing work on their more
advanced technologies at a site in India because,
until recently, there was no market in India for
products based on the newer technologies, and
no sense that India provided a viable export
platform.” The situation meant that “engineering
teams in the emerging economies worked in
relative isolation from their counterparts at triad
facilities and provided little that was useful in the
triad economies.”
The fundamental shift took place around the
turn of the century, when “the geography of
technology development underwent profound
shif ts as multinationals dispersed core
activities, “unlocking” them from long standing
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VOL 55 JUNE 2013
forms of organisational integration. Geographic
embeddedness that, only a few years ago, seemed
to confer unassailable advantages to areas such
as Silicon Valley must be examined anew now that
the “developing countries” are developing some
of the world’s leading-edge technology. Triad
multinationals are racing to shift cutting-edge
work on cellular telephones and other aspects of
telecommunications to China. They are moving
software development and some pharmaceutical
research to India. Advanced aerospace work is
being done in Brazil.” [4]
The authors call this emerging pattern of
activities in technology development ‘the new
globalisation of engineering’. They summarised
the nature and the significance of the transition
as follows: “The reduction of international trade
barriers and the development of new technologies
allowing globally dispersed work on engineering
have coincided with the push by firms to cut
costs by dispersing engineering activities globally
and the pull of growth markets in the emerging
economies that requires new engineering and
technology development, and offers the availability
of highly skilled human resources. The result has
been a massive transfer of technological capacity
to the emerging economies.” Importantly, the
authors also note that “the transition is not yet
complete, and its full ramifications are as yet
poorly understood.” Some aspects of this change
give particular concern to Lynn and Salzman, e.g.
analyzing the possibilities and threats posed by
this evolving pattern, and whether “boundaries
might exist between change that is adaptive and
change that risks the loss of control over essential
functions.”
Against the backdrop of this adaptive
development of the world engineering activities,
other significant drivers for change exist. Camuffo
[5] focuses his attention on the automotive
industry. More specifically, the author carried out
a case study of the concept of the Fiat Palio - the
“world car”, i.e. “a car that involves absolute
cross-country identity of interior/exterior design,
parts, and quality standards.”
One of the questions of major concern to the
author is the relationship between globalisation,
modularisation and outsourcing in the auto
industry. In line with the general trend identified
above of globalized manufacturing following