Organizational barriers. These are barriers due to the organizational structure of the firms involved in a project; include multi-level structure barriers and horizontal communication barriers.
Behavioral barriers. These are barriers mainly due to behavioral characteristics of related persons and posts; include uncompulsory liability and lack of incentive mechanism.
Technical barriers. These are barriers mainly due to the technical characteristics of information in projects. Lack of information collaborative system and application in different projects are two main aspects.
Fig 1. Barier triangle of information flows in quality management
An department has four steps are needed for information flows from work centers finding that a supplier provided non-conforming materials to other work centers work centers obtaining the information. In general the work center unveiling the problem could not share the information directly with other work centers due to horizontal communication barriers, namely, no economic and administrative links. Thus the complicated information flows resulted in problems, such as that, other work centers could not obtain the information if information flows suspension occurred. In this case, it is possible for these work centers to continue purchasing materials from the unqualified supplier, which could result in severe effects on the final products constructed.
Therefore reengineering the existing information flow channels was a major consideration for the company. If a work center found an unqualified subcontractor or material supplier it should feedback the information to the senior manager immediately and transfer it to other work center at the same time.
Fig 2. Current information flows in a OEM furniture company.The shadown C1 represents the work center/ line manager unveiled that some supplier provided non-confirmed materials.
A new information flows shows that all of the work center share information and exclude the unqualified material suppliers. For intermediary processes of information flows, it decreases the risk of suspension of information flows. The unqualified subcontractor or supplier is then deleted from the firm’s qualified lists in time.
Fig 3. Improvement of information flow in the OEM furniture company. The shadow C1 represents the work center/line manager unveiled that some supplier provided non-confirming materials. The dotted line represents the omitted information flows.
Second, administrators’ liability and incentive mechanism are missing in related information transfer processes, they might block information flows in quality improvement.
In a company, information asymmetry includes two aspects, interior and exterior of a company.
On one hand, information asymmetry is reflected from a contractor, subcontractors and suppliers. In general, subcontractors and suppliers could understand the contractor’s requirement on quality. The contractor gets a little information on the competence of quality management of subcontractors and suppliers, inter alia, the small sizes. Moreover, there is no formalized division of work and economic relationship, but administrative link, between top management, senior manager and work centers. The liability of the leader in a compnay for the performance of company is different from senior/ line managers’ liability. This is likely to tempt senior/line
managers to take high-risk decisions and actions. The potential success of the actions might lead the senior/line managers to high rewards. Nevertheless, the failure of these actions could cause huge financial loss to the firm. Therefore quality problems in furniture industry due to utilization of low quality materials are not strange in China. That is to a great extent dependent on reform of enterprise’s ownership.
On the other hand, information asymmetry in a construction firm reflects the imbalance of information transfer and information feedback. The information on quality management transferred from the top management to senior managers and work centers is much greater than information feedback from the work centers to top managements. Work centers concentrate their attentions on quality of the project undertaken by them. In general, they did not share information with their counterparts directly.
Third, information sharing among all parties and application in different projects can hardly be realized technically if firms do not have necessary IT infrastructure, information collaborative system and related business process. They are main technical barriers of information flows in quality improvement.
The OEM furniture industry has two particular characteristics:
1. There are many participants involved in a single project; and
2. There are various combinations of participants in different collection projects.
The former requires an effective information collaboration system to realize information sharing among multi-parties in a project. The later requires that the information collaboration systems can be applied in different projects even though the combination of participants is different.
Given these two characteristics, a web-based approach can be proposed to develop a system for information flows in quality management in collection projects. The use of the internet as the communication platform can help information transfer more effectively during the project process. Developing a communication system for the multi-parties in projects to collaborate on the web can also improve information flows in project management. On the other hand, new participants in different projects can also learn to use such a web-based information system in a short time and at low cost. It is clear that the technical problems can be overcome by utilizing the information and network technology that has prevailed in recent years.
Reengineering the existing information flow channels is necessary in the OEM furniture industry. For a work center, once it has found information on quality, such as unqualified subcontractor or a material supplier, it should feedback the information to the firm immediately and transfer it to other work center at the same time. Currently, information feedback in a step-by-step manner is not conducive to quality management.
