Commerce at light speed – an international comparative evaluation of CALS strategy and implementation in the USA and Japan
| Published date | 01 February 2001 |
| Date | 01 February 2001 |
| Pages | 32-40 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570110366014 |
| Author | Tony Holden,Ruth A. Schmidt |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Commerce at light speed ± an international
comparative evaluation of CALS strategy and
implementation in the USA and Japan
Tony Holden
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Ruth A. Schmidt
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Introduction
Launched in 1985, the concept of CALS was
originally introduced by the US Department
for Defense to facilitate supply chain
integration for defence contracts. CALS then
stood as an acronym for ``Computer Aided
Logistics Support'', but has since been
redesignated to mean ``commerce at light
speed'', thus reflecting the shift from an early
technology focus towards increasing
emphasis on total integrated business
solutions. Considered at the highest level,
CALS has evolved into an all-embracing
business strategy concerned with industry's
use of information technology (IT) in support
of the totality of business activity. As such, it
has been hailed as a paradigm shift towards
the third industrial revolution. In essence,
CALS is a set of tools and idealized business
practices which are facilitated by the
use of IT.
CALS could be said to be the first major
concerted attempt at e-business. Although
the original program emanated from the big
business needs of the US defence sector and
has received little of the publicity
surrounding recent ``dot-com'' business-to-
consumer and SME-to-SME activity, the
lessons learnt over the 15 years of its
existence have much to inform the
technically more modest but widespread
initiatives that use the publicly available
Internet and World-Wide-Web.
Prompted by the need for survival in an
increasingly pressurized global competitive
climate, CALS is intrinsic to supply chain
integration, often involving international
collaboration. The CALS framework
facilitates closer, integrated relationships
between all the parties and enterprises
concerned with the design, manufacture and
life-time support of a complex ``product'',
such as an aircraft, a petrochemical plant, a
communications network, or a weapon
system. This is made possible by knowledge
sharing based on electronic communication
which has evolved via the various stages of
data exchange process transformation from
traditional paper, only exchange over
various stages of partial digital exchange to
the use of a common source database.
For a company embracing a CALS strategy,
the aim is a single information source
forming a single product database where key
knowledge sets can be managed and exploited
as assets. In practice this can be a virtual
database created as part of a distributed
database organization.
In facilitating the move of companies
towards full CALS implementation, the
availability of suitable internationally shared
data exchange standards are important and
much of the early development work was
concerned with devising a standard for the
exchange of product model data (STEP). This
was necessary because, all too often,
companies implementing IT solutions
independently of each other end up incapable
of electronic information exchange, leadingto
duplication and the waste of time and
resources. Furthermore, even within
companies the different processes of design,
manufacturing and maintenance can end up
as ``separate islands of automation''. CALS
offers tools to integrate departments and
partner companies electronically, thus
facilitating concurrent engineering and
reducing development times by 30 per cent to
50 per cent through use of single source
information. In this, the role of
subcontractors is often enhanced through
closer partnerships and strengthened
communication links. The introduction of
STEP also reduced differentiation between
civil and defence business processes.
In addition, CALS brings about the
integration of the maintenance and support
side with design and manufacturing. An
important consequence can be the
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available
at
http://www.emerald-library.com/ft
[32]
Industrial Management &
Data Systems
101/1 [2001] 32±40
#MCB University Press
[ISSN 0263-5577]
Keywords
E-commerce, Japan, USA,
Manufacturing, Integration
Abstract
This article reports on and
compares early activity in the area
of electronic business in the USA
and Japan arising from the
introduction of the Continuous
Acquisition and Lifecycle Support
(CALS) initiative developed in the
USA in 1985, to improve defence
procurement and operational
support through the use of
electronic, rather than paper,
media. CALS is possibly the first
major e-business initiative and, as
such, it has important lessons to
give the present plethora of e-
business activity. Included are an
overview of what CALS is and how
it was adopted in the two different
cultural and industrial contexts.
The paper concludes by
summarizing possible implications
of CALS for the UK.
To continue reading
Request your trial