M. Eriksson's research while affiliated with KTH Royal Institute of Technology and other places

The globalization of markets, mergers of international companies, and integration of managerial and business processes in global corporations are changing project management fundamentals. A clearly recognizable trend in multinational companies since the mid-1980s has been globalization of R & D and competence portfolios. Applied development is usually conducted in the form of a distributed project organization. A project team is formed across geographical, organizational, and cultural boundaries, engaging in a project with a global focus. Although a multinational project organization has great potential in many dimensions, there is no doubt that the execution of a distributed high technological project is still a great challenge. This article identifies success factors in the management of distributed projects with global goals. The authors have focused on the practical experiences of the execution of complex multinational projects in the area of applied system development for power industry.

How the client organization (the buyer) should manage its resources when procuring a large technical system, referred to as a complex system, is the scope of this paper. This issue is interesting due to the ever-increased competition, leading to the downsizing of client organizations, and the search for higher organizational effectiveness. Therefore, it is essential that projects be managed in a more efficient way than they have in the past. The paper summarizes the results from an ongoing research project carried out at the Department of Industrial Information and Control Systems at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. The results are based on case studies and interviews, which have been conducted in close co-operation with major clients, vendors and consultants in Swedish companies. The projects included in the research have been studied from an organizational competence perspective. Finding out "who" is most suitable to do "what" according to different initial conditions in the projects studied. The paper addresses those aspects of management that are critical for successful completion of projects in this field.

Fundamentals of project management are changing by globalization of markets, mergers of international companies, and integration of managerial and business processes in global corporations. A clearly recognizable trend in multinational companies since the mid-1980s has been globalization of R&D and competence portfolios. Applied development is usually conducted in form of a distributed project organization. A project team is formed across geographical, organizational, and cultural boundaries, engaging in a project with a global focus. Although a multinational project organization has great potential in many dimensions, there is no doubt that the execution of a distributed high technological project is still a great challenge. This paper identifies prerequisite for further improvement in the management of distributed projects with global goals. The authors have focused on the practical experiences of the execution of complex multinational dispersed projects in the area of applied system development in power industry.

Investment projects in the pulp and paper industry are characterized by difficulties in specifying the required performance in advance, and in estimating costs, qualities and quantities of the product to be produced. It is also difficult to evaluate the relative performances of different engineering and construction companies. The Department of Industrial Control Systems, KTH, Sweden has performed a series of case studies in cooperation with clients, suppliers, contractors, and consultants within the pulp and paper industry. The goal is to explore opportunities afforded by a system-oriented procurement process.