Human resource management and the influence of optimal CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM technologies in tools and mould making industry.

Belgiu, George ; Ruset, Dorina ; Mocan, Marian Liviu 等

1. INTRODUCTION

The development of a design office for tool and mould making industry (T&MMI) depends from many factors as: overall management, marketing, human resources, world economy etc. Significant parts of company's capital consist of the internal factors, and human resources are one factor that appears to discriminate best between the more-successful and the less-successful companies (Baldwin & Sabourin, 2001; Clark, 1994; ***, 2009a). This paper presents the human resource problem in Eastern Europe,--especially for western part of Romania--for the T&MMI, in the period of 1990-2008.

What is important to find out in this paper for the T&MMI? First, for employers is critical to forecast the evolution of human resource value in a specific area and time. Second, for the corporate universities, the feedbacks of the quality of engineers graduated have a great consequence for the strategies adopted. This is a matter of surviving for the manufacturing companies and universities, but also is an important issue for the consulting firms, training facilities, economic region, and government. The difficulty emerge because is no direct communication between manufacturing companies and universities. In this paper we address directly to the polytechnic universities to adopt a corresponding curriculum with reality and further prognosis in T&MMI.

Many authors focused on market share of T&MMI, how is transferred from declining firms to growing firms over one or two decades, how the firm productivity is associated with the communications technologies, Research and Development (R&D) facilities and other revolutionary activities.

Other authors have studied the impact of human resource evolution on industry in the last two decades, and argues that the key areas for success is the capabilities of a company from T&MMI--in our case--that enable it to learn only the modern technologies (Grote, 2002; Lawson, 2002; McConnell, 2001).

In T&MMI sphere, in the human resource class we can take into account: management, design engineers, manufacturing engineers, technicians, and workshop operators. In this paper we reflect on engineers only, and we study the evolution of this category in the last two decades.

For the last two decades, in Romania the areas of human resource development consist in benefits and compensation, employee relations, labor relations, selection and placement, recruiting, retention, and occupational safety in conjunction with local policy development.

2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCE IN T&MMI, FROM 1990 TO 2008

The fundamentals skills, knowledge and expertise for manufacturing engineers in T&MMI are: (i) learning and innovation skills, critical thinking and problem solving; (ii) engineering and technology skills--general mechanical engineering literacy, tool and mould making literacy, CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM literacy; (iii) financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy (Mader-Clark, 2008). The human resource performance data in T&MMI used in the study come from a Romanian Survey of Manufactures, which contains data on employment (production and nonproduction), labour productivity (value added per engineer), wages and salaries, during the period 1990 to 2008. Polytechnic University of Timisoara was a primary source data for this survey.

Today in the T&MMI, engineers should validate (i) designs for tooling; (ii) designs for mold parts and related part specifications; (iii) designs moulds assemblies and the associated drawings or documentation. From year 1990 to 2008 the technology evolution for T&MMI is shown in the table 1.

In table 2 we show the evolution of human resource in Romania for the last two decades, in T&MMI area. We analysed more than 400 engineers graduated from six major polytechnic universities, especially from Polytechnic University of Timisoara, Romania (***, 2009b; ***, 2009c).

For those purposes, we relate the human resource performance over a period (1990-2008) to the value use at the beginning of the period (1990).

For simplicity, in this paper we consider a firm can have two categories of performance. First, is the performance of advanced technology used over the period (T1 = 1990, T2 =2008). The technology performance over a period is:

[DELTA][TECH.sub.PERF T2, T1] = f([Tech_PAR.sub.T2, T1]) (1)

In the equation 1, the technology performance over a period depends on various parameters such as CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM technology, modeling or simulation technologies and many others presented in table 1. All of them we can generic nominate as Tech_PAR.

The second type of performance in a firm is the performance of human resource used over the period (T1 = 1990, T2 =2008). The human resource performance over a period is:

[DELTA][HR.sub.PERF T2, T1] = f([Hr_PAR.sub.T2, T1]) (1)

In the equation 2, the human resource performance over a period depends on a range of parameters like learning and innovation skills, engineering and technology skills, and others presented in table 2, firs column. All of them we can generic nominate as Hr_PAR. Computer-aided design technologies skills dominate this performance category.

At topic is the amount to which firm that demonstrate different levels of achievement are found to use [DELTA][HR.sub.PERF T2, T1] more or less intensively. We utilize a method on this subject first with bivariate analysis that compares different measures of [DELTA][HR.sub.PERF T2, T1] performance and then with multivariate analysis that regresses performance measures on [DELTA][HR.sub.PERF T2, T1] and a number of other characteristics from table 2.

[DELTA][FIRM.sub.PERF T2, T1] = [DELTA][TECH.sub.PERF T2, T1] + [DELTA][HR.sub.PERF T2, T1]) (3)

Economic performance of a company is expected to be related to technology and human resource use at the start of the period and changes in advanced technology use over the period --equation 3.

Specifically, the research course and the method presented in this paper represent a methodology for study the human resource evolution and firm performance available to managers.

3. CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH

We have presented in this paper the human resource performance over a period (1990-2008) in conjunction with technology performance in T&MMI. This allows managers to take the correct decisions by examining whether firms with different growth paths made different use of advanced technologies and hopefully reduces the effect of low human resource performance.

In the last two decades, Romanian human resources in T&MMI area contain these observable outlines:

* a crucial progression in CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM proficiency;

* qualified competences in communications, business quality, and problem solving;

* ineffectual aptitudes in working practices, general mechanical engineering, tool and mould making expertise.

The critical trends ([DELTA][HR.sub.PERF T2, T1]) are compensate by the evolution of tool and mould making technology ([DELTA][TECH.sub.PERF T2, T1]). At this moment economic performance of a company ([DELTA][FIRM.sub.PERF T2 T1]) is evidently positive. However, this trend could be radically increased if the value of [DELTA][HR.sub.PERF T2, T1] will be optimized in the future.

Our future research with respect to the [DELTA][HR.sub.PERF T2, T1] rate includes refining the uncertainty model adopted, to include other effects and relaxing the simplifying assumptions.

Major importance in human resource performance in this field has the universities curricula. At the moment there is insignificant cooperation between corporate universities, consulting firms, manufacturing companies and others educational institutions involved in T&MMI.

It will be a simple solution to adapt universities curricula to the necessities of the market and cultivate strong skills in the undergraduate and graduate programmes, to reach the highest levels of human resource performance.

4. REFERENCES

Baldwin, J.R. & Sabourin, D. (2001). Impact of the Adoption of Advanced Information and Communication Technologies on Firm Performance in the Canadian Manufacturing Sector, Micro-Economic Analysis Division, Ottawa, K1A 0T6, Statistics Canada, Facsimile Number: (613) 951-5403, ISBN: 0-662-31016-0, Ottawa

Clark, J. (1994). Human resource management and technical change, SAGE Publications Ltd., ISBN 0-8039-8786-2, London

Grote, D. (2002). The Performance Appraisal Question and Answer Book: A Survival Guide for Managers, AMACOM --American Management Association, ISBN 0-8144-0747-1, New York, www.amacombooks.org

Lawson, K. (2002). New Employee Orientation, ASTD--Society for Human Resource Management, ISBN:9781562863180, New York

Mader-Clark, M. (2008). Job Description Handbook, 2nd Edition, NOLO, ISBN:9781413307573, New York

McConnell, J.H. (2001). Auditing your human resources department: a step-by-step guide, AMACOM--American Management Association, ISBN 0-8144-7076-9, New York, www.amacombooks.org

*** (2009a) http://www.dhrm.state.va.us/ compreform/hrmanual.pdf--Human resource management manual, Accessed on: 2009-05-10

*** (2009b) http://download.microsoft.com/ download/7/5/0/7509B56F-5598-4C83- B4C5-A65BC2A92B8D/GP_HRMSSS_US.pdf--Human Resources Online for Microsoft Dynamics GP--US, Accessed on:2009-04-22

*** (2009c) http://work911.com/articles/orient.htm--A Quick Guide To Employee Orientation--Help For Managers & HR, Accessed on:2009-05-07

Tab. 1. The evolution of Tool and Mould Making Technology
in Romania (percentage of total evolution for the
establishments using the technology)

T&MMI Technology 1990 2008

Computer-aided design 11 183
Computer-aided engineering 2 147
Computer-aided manufacturing 5 122
Product data management 0 38
Product life management 0 15
Manufacturing resource planning 0 151
Modelling or simulation technologies 3 44
Computer integrated manufacturing 0 8
Flexible manufacturing systems 0 3
Use of inspection data for 0 124
 manufacturing control
Knowledge-based software 0 5
Local and wide computer networks 4 177
Rapid prototyping systems 0 25
Computers used for control on the 0 138
 factory floor
Automated vision-based inspection and 0 12
 testing systems
Virtual Factory systems 0 2
Digital and remote controlled process 0 12
 plant control
Automated storage system 0 28

Tab. 2. The evolution of Romanian human resource
performance in T&MMI area (year 1990 is considered base =
100%)

Human resource performance 1990 2008
 [%] [%]

Creativity and innovation 100 210
Critical thinking and proble 100 160
 solving
Communication and collaboration 100 220
General mechanical engineering 100 40
 literacy
Tool and mould making literacy 100 80
CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM literacy 100 2300
Financial, economic, business and 100 480
 entrepreneurial literacy
Working practices 100 30
Industrial design and ergonomics 100 350
Quality, standards and safety 100 180
General education and training 100 75