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ARTICLE IN PRESS
Int. J. Production Economics 107 (2007) 179–189
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe
A DFX and concurrent engineering model for the establishment
of a new department in a university
Ching-Chow Yanga, Shun-Hsing Chena,b, , Jiun-Yan Shiaua
a
Department of Industrial Engineering, Chung-Yuan University, Taiwan, ROC
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Chin-Min Institute of Technology, Taiwan, ROC
b
Received 11 July 2005; accepted 29 August 2006
Available online 1 November 2006
Abstract
The natural focus of concurrent engineering (CE) and design for X (DFX), as commonly used by manufacturing
industry, is on product design or new service development. The present study applies the DFX technique in a CE
environment to the planning and design of a new department in a university, and thus develops a comprehensive model for
such an undertaking. The model identifies two stages in the overall process: the planning stage and the design stage. The
planning stage includes four dimensions, whereas the design stage includes 11 dimensions. The dimensions are
interdependent; indeed, the dimensions cannot be implemented separately and sequentially. The model must be
implemented in a CE environment. A case study is then presented in which a department of leisure management at a
university is established using the model described. The implications of the case study and the final conclusions of the paper
are then presented.
r 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Concurrent engineering (CE); Design for X (DFX); New service development (NSD); University
1. Introduction
The twenty-first century is the era of the
globalized knowledge economy for a wide range of
business activities, including university education.
As the educational market has become liberalized,
Taiwan has recently introduced reforms in educational policy. These reforms have been especially
marked since the entry of Taiwan to the World
Corresponding author. Department of Industrial Engineering
and Management, Chin-Min Institute of Technology, 110 HsuehFu Road, Tou-Fen, Miao-Li 35145, Taiwan, ROC.
Tel.: +886 3 7605723; fax: +886 3 7605724.
E-mail address: k872790@yahoo.com.tw (S.-H. Chen).
Trade Organization (WTO). The rapid growth in
university education has changed the nature of the
Taiwanese educational sector from its original
model of elite education to one of mass education
and, subsequently, to a system of universal education (Ministry of Education Statistical Department,
2004). However, these changes have created imbalances between supply and demand in university
education, leading to a reduction in educational
quality. As international competition in educational
services has become more intense, many countries
have invested enthusiastically in university education in an effort to maintain their international
competitiveness. Taiwan is no exception. To adapt
to the strong competition that has accompanied
0925-5273/$ – see front matter r 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2006.08.009
ARTICLE IN PRESS
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C.-C. Yang et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 107 (2007) 179–189
membership of the WTO, Taiwan must immediately
improve the quality of its university education
(Chen and Ho, 2003).
The provision of education is a service industry
characterized by a high degree of interpersonal
contact (Chase, 1978; Katouzian, 1970); therefore,
any exploration of the management of the education
system must begin with a consideration of its
service-industry attributes. However, despite the
importance of the service sector, empirical research
on new service development (NSD) is still sparse
(Bullinger et al., 2003), and the studies that have
focused on NSD (Alam and Perry, 2002; De
Brentani, 1995) have largely neglected its application in the educational sector. This relative lack of
attention is both surprising and a matter for concern
specially in view of the fact that service design in
education has been identified as a crucial factor
determining educational quality (Oplatka, 2004). In
particular, when planning and designing new
departments in universities, few suitable models
are available for reference in designing integrated
models that are appropriate to practical requirements (Bullinger et al., 2003).
Universities must take care in planning new
departments and satisfying their customers. Kanji
and Tambi (1999) have noted that university
customers include students, staff, parents, businesses, and government. To meet the demands of
these customers in a competitive market, universities must promote themselves as offering highquality education. In pursuit of this objective,
unsatisfactory departments are frequently dissolved
to allow new departments to introduce novel
curricula, advanced technologies, first-class teaching, and improved service quality. This encourages
able students to enroll and enables the university to
provide graduates who meet modern recruitment
criteria. This process of renewal and improvement is
important to universities in the modern competitive
environment. If planning and resources are insufficient, the process will fail to deliver satisfactory
outcomes, thus leading to a lack of student
enrollment and, ultimately, to adverse affects on
the reputation and financial success of the university.
In the services sector in general, many servicedesign methods are available; however, these have
seldom been used in the design and development of
the education sector. Many studies have reported on
the implementation of such methods as quality
function deployment (QFD) and concurrent engi-
neering (CE) in manufacturing industries and in
NSD in general (Han et al., 2004; Stehn and
Bergström, 2002; Kumar and Midha, 2001; Koufteros and Marcoulides, 2006). However, QFD is
more complicated and less convenient than ‘design
for X’ (DFX) (Hsiao, 2002). DFX emphasizes the
consideration of all design goals and related
constraints in the early design stage (Kuo et al.,
2001) and allows the rationalization of services,
associated processes, and systems (Huang and Mak,
1997). Effective utilization of DFX and CE in NSD
can concurrently improve quality, costs, and cycle
times (Dowlatshahi, 2001a, b; Huang and Mak,
1997). Against this background, the present study
applies the DFX technique in a CE environment to
the problem of establishing a new department in a
university.
2. Literature review
2.1. CE
Prasad (1996) defined CE in the following terms:
‘‘concurrent engineering is a systematic approach to
the integrated, concurrent design of products and
their related process, including manufacture and
support’’. In manufacturing, CE is predominantly
used in product design (Dowlatshahi, 1996, 1997),
and product life-cycle (Dowlatshahi, 2001a). The
advantages of the use of CE are (Dowlatshahi, 1992,
1997):

reduction in product development cycle time;
avoidance of costly future redesigns;
reduction in duplication of effort;
better communication and dialogue;
more efficient operations and higher productivity;
overall cost savings;
elimination or reduction of product recalls;
lower maintenance costs;
more reliable products;
better customer satisfaction; and
improved bottom line.
CE impinges on several factors in the establishment of new department in a university including
customers’ demands, competitive advantage, market attractiveness, financial resources, and the
quality of execution of the whole process of
establishing a new department. To consolidate these
dimensions, it is therefore important that a new
ARTICLE IN PRESS
C.-C. Yang et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 107 (2007) 179–189
department be designed in a CE environment. With
scrupulous planning and design, the new department will not consume valuable resources unnecessarily, and will simultaneously meet the demands of
customers.
181
(Dowlatshahi, 1997, 2000); logistics (Dowlatshahi,
1996, 1999); product life-cycle (Dowlatshahi,
2001a); and product safety and reliability (Dowlatshahi, 2001b). As Dowlatshahi (1992) has demonstrated, all aspects of DFX are integrated and can
proceed simultaneously (see Fig. 1).
2.2. DFX
2.3. New service development (NSD)
DFX was developed in the late 1970s (Kuo et al.,
2001). Since the late 1990s, hundreds of papers have
been published pertaining to the DFX applications
in manufacturing (Rosairo and Knight, 1989; Kuo
et al., 2001) and it is widely used in the development
of new products (Huang and Mak, 1997; Kuo et al.,
2001). DFX is a general term; ‘X’ can represent
assembling, manufacturing, quality, and so on. The
exact nature of the variable ‘X’ in any instance
defines the focus of a DFX tool. ‘X’ has two parts
X ¼ x+bility. The suffix ‘-bility’ corresponds to the
performance matrices (Huang and Mak, 1997). The
‘x’ part represents one or more business processes
corresponding to one or more life cycles in product
development (Huang and Mak, 1997). However,
there have been few studies in the literature on the
application of DFX in the design of a new
department in a university.
DFX emphasizes consideration of all design goals
and related constraints in the early design stage
(Kuo et al., 2001). As such, DFX represents a suite
of contemporary service-development techniques
that can effectively be applied in service development to achieve concurrent improvement in quality,
cost, and time to market. The technique allows the
rationalization of services, associated processes, and
systems (Huang and Mak, 1997). DFX has been
applied in: purchasing (Dowlatshahi, 1992); product design in a designer–buyer–supplier interface
Design for
Marketability
Design for
Procurability
Design for Cost
Design for
Schedulability
The ability of a service organization to remain
competitive in today’s technologically dynamic and
market-driven environment is largely dependent
upon the quality, cost, and timing of new service
offerings (De Brentani, 1995; Dowlatshahi, 1997). A
service organization needs to provide new services
of high quality at low cost at the right time for
customers. Many quality problems are recurrent
and, to a great extent, these result from shortcomings in the development of new services
(Edvardsson, 1992; Juran, 1992). In recent decades,
manufacturing industries have developed many
models, methods, and tools for the development of
quality new products such as the spiral model
(Bullinger et al., 2003), QFD, CE, business process
re-engineering (BPR), and DFX. However, few of
these are used in the design and development of
service organizations (Bullinger et al., 2003), including those in the educational sector (Friel, 2000).
Effective utilization of CE and DFX to new
service design and development will result in
concurrent improvement in production innovation,
quality, costs, and cycle times (Dowlatshahi, 2001a;
Huang and Mak, 1997; Koufteros et al., 2001; Pillai
et al., 2002). The core of the NSD process cycle is
the ‘service concept’—which involves the service
system, technology, people, tools, and the organizational context.
Process Design
Design for
Reliability and
Maintainability
Production
Design
Design for
Manufacturing
planning and
Control
Design for
Safety and
Liability
Design for
Qualit
Design for
Logistic and
Environment
Fig. 1. DFX in the CE environment framework (Source: Dowlatshahi, 1992).
ARTICLE IN PRESS
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C.-C. Yang et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 107 (2007) 179–189
3. Model for establishment of a new department in a
university
New service design and development involves the
following steps (Alam and Perry, 2002; Edvardsson,
1997; Johnson et al., 2000; Murdick et al., 1990):

concept creation;
planning and analysis;
design;
testing and pilot run; and
performance measurement.
The present study applies the NSD concept in
developing a model for the establishment of a new
department in a university. The model integrates the
above steps into two stages: planning and design.
These two stages are discussed further below.
3.1. Planning stage
To best meet consumers’ requirements of a
product (service) from a design perspective, the
physical elements of the product (service) requirements being linked to consumers’ perception of the
product (Aitken et al., 2003; Lai et al., 2006.).
Therefore, the planning stage consists of four
dimensions (see Fig. 2):

confirmation of customer requirements;
analysis of competition;
strategic decisions; and
Confirmed customer
requirements
Confirmed new
department vision
and mission
Planning stage
Competition analysis
Strategic decisions
Design of evaluation
system
Design of student
recruitment
Design of
marketability
planning
Design of
administration
support
Design of space
planning
Design of financial
planning
Design stage
Design of teacher
employment
Design of education
quality
Design of physical/
technical facilities
Design of teaching/
service process
Design of
curriculum planning
Fig. 2. Framework of university’ new department with the DFX in the CE environment.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
C.-C. Yang et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 107 (2007) 179–189

confirmation of new department’s vision and
mission.
Each of these is discussed below.
3.1.1. Confirmation of customer requirements
The most important customers of educational
organizations are students and staff (Kanji and
Tambi, 1999), and this stage ensures that the target
customers are recognized. Customer interviews,
customer surveys, and focus group methods are
used to ascertain and confirm customer demands.
3.1.2. Analysis of competition
As noted above, competition among universities
is becoming increasingly fierce. Strength, weakness,
opportunity, threat (SWOT) analysis is therefore
applied to analyze the university operations. The
analysis reveals resources and competitiveness in
relation to other institutions in terms of demographics, economic environment, political and legal
environment, sociocultural environment, technological environment, and global environment. The
purpose of this analysis is to allow the university to
make use of its strengths, modify any weaknesses,
master the available opportunities, and exclude any
threats (Yang, 2004).
3.1.3. Strategic decisions
The analysis of the competition (above) allows
the university to determine the departments that
should be established to meet customer demand. By
adopting an appropriate strategy, organizations can
avoid potential problems and risks (David, 2001),
and thus achieve competitive advantage. In contrast, incorrect decisions can cause inefficiencies and
cost increases ultimately eroding organizational
competitiveness (De kluyver, 2000; Quinn, 1980).
3.1.4. Confirmation of new department’s vision and
mission
The new department requires an appropriate
mission and vision to promote the reputation of
the university, and to enhance cooperation and
teamwork among staff and students. An organizational mission is a statement of the reason for the
existence of that organization (Kaplan and Norton,
2001; Niven, 2002), whereas a vision provides a
blueprint that points to the future development of
the organization (Kaplan and Norton, 2001; Niven,
2002). Such a vision is usually expected to establish
183
a framework of teamwork, resources, and support
structures.
3.2. Design stage
In investigating the design stage, the present study
used interviews and/or a questionnaire survey
administered to 92 administrative executives or
deans of several universities in Taiwan. The questionnaire used Likert-style scales from 1 to 7 to
measure responses (with 1 representing very unimportant to 7 representing very important). The
original questionnaire developed for the study
included 14 dimensions that received very low
scores (mean value o6). These were eliminated
from the final questionnaire, which contained 11
dimensions. The study then explored the parallel,
and interactive relationships among these dimensions. The objective was to reorganize each practice
in terms of the principles of DFX, and then to
propose an integrated model of a new department in
a CE environment.
As a result of the above empirical evidence and
analysis, the dimensions can be summarized as
follows (see Fig. 2):

design
design
design
design
design
design
design
design
design
design
design
of
of
of
of
of
of
of
of
of
of
of
student recruitment;
financial planning;
marketability planning;
teacher employment;
education quality;
curriculum planning;
teaching/service process;
physical/technical facilities;
space planning;
administration support; and
evaluation system.
Each of these is discussed below.
3.2.1. Design of student recruitment
Students are the key customers of a school (Kanji
and Tambi, 1999), and student tuition fees dominate
the financial income of a university. This aspect of
the design includes entry standards, enrollment
requirements, class sizes, and student numbers.
Class sizes and the number of students in a
department should be approbated by the Ministry
of Education (MOE) of Taiwan, and so must be
planned in advance.
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3.2.2. Design of financial planning
Universities must have adequate financial resources such that its departments can implement
the institution’s mission and vision. This aspect of
the design includes the cost of libraries and facilities,
staff salaries, and personnel expenses.
3.2.3. Design of marketability planning
This dimension includes the design of marketing
methods, marketing expenses, marketing the implementation unit, and the arrangement of personnel.
3.2.4. Design of teacher employment
This dimension includes the deployment of
teachers, ensuring teaching skills, determining teacher numbers, and deciding teachers’ salaries.
3.2.5. Design of education quality
This dimension includes determining teacher/
student ratios, deciding teaching hours, implementing plans for teaching improvement, and arrangements for education quality assessment.
3.2.6. Design of curriculum planning
This dimension includes curriculum development,
designing overall credits (including compulsory and
optional subjects), and curriculum planning and
evaluation.
3.2.7. Design of teaching/service process
This dimension includes the standardization and
simplification of teaching procedures, the determination of customer requirements and expectations,
establishing the service level and quality standards
specifications, and designing a monitoring-andcontrol system for teaching/service process quality.
3.2.8. Design of physical/technical facilities
This dimension includes the design of a friendly
environment, facility layout, interior decoration,
flow of people, and design of physical surroundings.
3.2.9. Design of space planning
This dimension includes the design of space for
classrooms, learning, libraries, and facilities, and the
allocation of research rooms for use by teachers.
3.2.10. Design of administration support
This dimension includes the design of an administrative framework, the framing of teacher and
student satisfaction surveys, and planning of administration facilities.
3.2.11. Design of evaluation system
This dimension includes the design of performance-measurement systems and performance-measurement indicators.
If these dimensions are carefully planed and
designed, erroneous planning and investment decisions will be avoided.
3.3. Summary of planning and design stages
As shown in Fig. 2, a carefully considered planning
stage supports the design stage. The dimensions of
each are interdependent and cannot be implemented
separately or sequentially. Indeed, if attempts are
made to implement the dimensions separately or
sequentially, a lack of communication will lead to
confusion and wasted effort (Anumba et al., 2002).
In a properly organized CE implementation, each
department offers its sugges …
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