OFFSHORING OF ENGINEERING SERVICES: A CASE STUDY FROM THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
DS 77: Proceedings of the DESIGN 2014 13th International Design Conference
Year: 2014
Editor: Marjanovic Dorian, Storga Mario, Pavkovic Neven, Bojcetic Nenad
Author: Simplay, S.; Hansen, Z.
Series: DESIGN
Section: ENGINEERING DESIGN PRACTICE
Page(s): 1999-2010
Abstract
Offshoring of engineering services in the automotive industry is progressively increasing with organisations taking advantage of low cost regions and highly educated workforce.
This paper presents a case study of a large automotive multinational that offshored the body engineering activity of a complete vehicle design for cost advantages. The findings showed that when offshoring complex engineering services this caused complexities and challenges to both organisations. The case company decided to pull back the engineering services and outsource to an engineering service provider based locally.
Keywords: automotive industry, offshoring, engineering design, case study