Business processes have become more simultaneous and collaborative in the recent past. In simultaneous processes, multiple parties must adapt to one another in real time as decisions evolve. For example, New Product Development (NPD) requires collaboration in the context of Concurrent Engineering, and Supply Chain Management (SCM) in the context of collaborative planning.
In both cases, parties must modify decisions based on preliminary information, information that is not fully precise or stable, about what the other parties are doing. This article develops a generalized model of real‐time decision making based on preliminary information, which applies both to NPD and SCM. The model offers insights into when to commit to a course of action, and we derive seven principles that help in dealing with preliminary information.
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