Exploring the archetypes of engineer-to-order companies from information and knowledge management perspectives

Purpose Nowadays, the number of companies operating in an engineer-to-order (ETO) environment is significantly growing. Typically, ETO companies deal with challenges related to increasing quality of the product, shortening lead time and reducing costs. In order to confront these challenges, ETO companies employ various practices to increase the efficiency of their respective processes to remain on the competitive edge. In this context, ETO has been outlined as a highly information intensive business process. Similarly, ETO process introduces a solid base of knowledge recognition, creation and utilization across the entire value chain. As a consequence, information and knowledge management related issues have been underlined as a principal source of challenges in an ETO environment to be dealt with. To date, it has not entirely clear how the ETO settings address those aforementioned challenges, and eventually, which practices they adopt to improve the performance. Therefore, this study primarily deals with mechanisms to improve information reuse within the ETO environment in order to make the ETO process more efficient through the integration of information systems. Second, this study attempts to conceptualize knowledge management practices in the real ETO environment that is most likely to lead towards superior performance. To explore this issue, we firstly establish a conceptual framework to posit absorptive capacity (ACAP) within the entire ETO value chain. This allows us to systematically address knowledge management practices from capturing to exploiting knowledge across the ETO value chain. Then, we introduce success practices to enable the so-called “ETO Enabling Process”, that is a systematic approach to generate the essential information to foster creation of non-standard solutions and a useful method to capture lessons learnt. This allows us to generalize the empirical findings applicable in a wider perspective, and in the other ETO firms. Finally, we argue that ETO firms are fundamentally different from the perspective of information and knowledge management strategies and practices. Therefore, it is necessary to classify the ETO firms in accordance with the parameters that impact on information and knowledge management practices. Design/methodology/approach In our study, we theoretically attempt to learn from extant literature review in the ETO environment by mainly targeting information and knowledge management challenges. Therefore, we design a preliminary research which aims at gaining a general impression of the phenomenon: “how does the interplay between information & knowledge management and engineer-to-order process occur”. As a consequence, once the relevant articles have been selected, we carry out the classical literature review to highlight the research gaps. In this research, we endeavor to study a contemporary phenomenon in a real-life context of the ETO companies. Therefore, the appropriate research methodology for our study is conducting “case studies”. Based on the purpose of the research, we have an inductive research with exploration and theory building purposes. Data collection is mainly based on observations, archival records and interviews. Findings This study establishes a conceptual framework aiming at bringing three main information systems: engineering, manufacturing and service information systems, together in one single repository. This framework allows us to capture main information reuse situations across the entire ETO value chain. Second, ETO value chain as a potential source of knowledge is dealt with which allows us to investigate the relevance of Absorptive Capacity (ACAP) alongside the chain. Third, ETO Enabling Process as a framework to explain how Solution Space (SS) is dynamically extended in the advanced ETO companies is explored. Last, this study argues that ETO firm are vastly different in terms of deploying specific knowledge management tools and techniques and therefore, it is crucial to develop a classification of ETO firms to formulate proper information and knowledge management strategies. Relevance/Contribution This study builds on a new dimension into the literature of ETO companies in terms of information systems, and the way the ETO process could be effectively improved by integrating the information systems and therefore, pursuing continuous information improvement process. Further, this study contributes to advancing theory in the fields of knowledge management, absorptive capacity and ETO. Empirically, this study endeavors to introduce a long-term key strategy to be executed by the companies aiming at reducing the degrees of uncertainty in ETO environment. Thus, through the adoption of the right tools and techniques, the companies are likely to increase standardization and in turn, to achieve higher efficiency. Keywords: Engineer-To-Order (ETO), Information Systems, Absorptive Capacity (ACAP), ETO Enabling Process, Solution Space, Archetypes, Success Practices