Annotated Bibliography: Engineering Discipline

Topic: Outsourcing

Outsourcing is a business practice used by companies to condense costs or improve efficiency by fluctuating tasks, operations, jobs or processes to an external contracted third party for a significant period. An example for outsourcing is when a fortune 500 company decides to hire employees from a different country since the labor is cheaper. The reason why I selected this topic is because outsourcing has become prevalent in America.

Parry, G., James-Moore, M., & Graves, A. (2006). Outsourcing engineering commodity

procurement. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 11(5), 436-443. 10.1108/13598540610682453

The purpose of this journal article is to provide the reader with the benefits of outsourcing the procurement function for engineering service items. Procurement is the action of obtaining or procuring something. While reading this scholarly article, my opinion on outsourcing remains the same. Nonetheless, although my opinion remains the same this article showed light to a different aspect of how outsourcing is applied into the engineering field. This article explains that outsourcing also involves migrating a staff to a service provider where their commodity procurement was a focus allowing them to offer cost savings. I can use this article in my ethical issue paper because with this information I have enough information to argue both sides and compare.

V, S. M., V, A. A., & A, K. L. (2016). The role of outsourcing and engineering in

increasing competitiveness of processing enterprises. Problemi Ekonomiki, 2, 129-135.

The purpose of this article is to prove why outsourcing is beneficial to starting a new approach to increasing the performance of enterprises operating under conditions of ambiguity and instability of the environment. This article also stated that outsourcing can lead to costs reduction to creation of value in business operations. Although my opinion on outsourcing remains the same, I am starting to see early stages of trend within the articles I’ve read so far. Thus, I will be able to use this article in my ethical issue paper.

Zirpoli, F., & Becker, M. C. (2011). The limits of design and engineering outsourcing:

Performance integration and the unfulfilled promises of modularity. R&D Management, 41(1), 21-43. 10.1111/j.1467-9310.2010.00629.xUnlike the other articles, this one shows light to the difficulties that occur with outsourcing in the engineering field. It states that although outsourcing has become very popular, firms that have outsourced design and engineering tasks often experience problems. This article backs up my original opinion by showing the limitations of outsourcing. I can use this article in my ethics issue paper.

Burdon, S., & Bhalla, A. (2005). Lessons from the untold success story:: Outsourcing

engineering and facilities management. European Management Journal, 23(5), 576-582.

This article aims to take a detailed look at the benefits sought and obtained from EFM outsourcing. EFM stands for Enterprise Facility Management. The article goes into detail the reasoning behind companies choosing to outsource. They did a study of twenty-six outsourcing contracts making up approximately fifteen percent of Australia’s EFM segment. Nonetheless, this article can be use in my ethical issue paper.

Cruz, A. M., & Rincon, A. M. R. (2012). Medical device maintenance outsourcing: Have

operation management research and management theories forgotten the medical engineering community? A mapping review. European Journal of Operational Research, 221(1), 186. 10.1016/j.ejor.2012.02.043

In this paper we look at the large body of existing research on outsourcing, and it evaluate the status of research on outsourcing the maintenance of medical devices.

It also gives attention to different ways of outsourcing such as, through mathematical models. Although this article is about outsourcing it focuses on a field that I have no interest in pursuing. Thus, I will not use this in my ethical issue paper.

Chen, L., & Tseng, Y. (2017). How it outsourcing impacts on value creation of

manufacturer? Paper presented at the , 123 00022.

10.1051/matecconf/201712300022

This article explains a growing concern among the manufacturers who are actively involved in Information Technology outsourcing. Which is post-contract management and the resultant development of what many practitioners have called the ‘outsourcing partnership’. The article also discusses that information technology outsourcing has become an extensively used and researched means for manufacturers to improve their performance. After reading this article, I’ve found another flaw within outsourcing. Which means that I will use this article in my ethical issue paper.

Hoecht, A., & Trott, P. (2006). Innovation risks of strategic outsourcing. Technovation,

26(5), 672-681. 10.1016/j.technovation.2005.02.004

This is another article that helps support my opinion. By saying that although outsourcing is derived from the logic of cost saving, but it has now developed into a routine strategic management move that affects not only peripheral functions but the heart of the competitive core of organizations. This paper also investigates the innovation-related jeopardies that can rise from strategic outsourcing and adopts a trust, collaboration and network perspective for this analysis. This article is beneficial to my opinion so I can use this article in my ethical issue paper.

Gonzalez, R., Gasco, J., & Llopis, J. (2006). Information systems offshore outsourcing: A

descriptive analysis. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 106(9), 1233-1248. 10.1108/02635570610712555

This article breaks down the study of information systems offshore outsourcing. They proposed three steps which are: weighing up the advantages and risks of offshore outsourcing; analyzing the taxonomy of this phenomenon; and determining its current geography. The article also gives a solution. That conclusions suggest that the range of potential offshore outsourcing destinations must be widened and that the search for a provider cannot be based exclusively on cost savings. Which supports my original opinion, thus I can us this article in my ethical issue paper.