Individual Contributions by a Cross-Functional Team: Cross-Functional

Individual Contributions by a Cross-Functional Team: Cross-functional teams have become important aspects in the modern business environment because of their role in enhancing integration and coordination, extending an organization's boundaries, and lessening the production cycle time during the process of developing new products. The formation of cross-functional teams is based on the effect of bringing people together from various disciplines to enhance problem solving and provide thorough decision-making procedures.

The significance of cross-functional teams in an organization is that they strengthen a spirit of cooperation that eases the accomplishment of customer satisfaction and organizational objectives at the same time. As a result, cross-functional teams are beneficial to individuals on the team, the product, customers, and the entire organization (Weber, n.d.). Since the cross-functional team consist of personnel from different disciplines such as engineering, supply management, and manufacturing, effective participation of and leading the personnel is crucial for effective execution of supply chain management.

In most cases, harnessing the personnel's expertise and working through the ordinary barriers is a challenge that needs effort to accomplish the desired goal i.e. resolving issues and problems as well as providing viable alternative solutions. The engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain management will play a critical role in the achievement of organizational objectives because of their individual contributions in various activities such as specifications development and market analysis.

The other activities that require individual contributions include productivity or cost enhancements, make or buy analysis, and determination of inventory levels. With regards to specifications development, the cross functional team gathers information from different departments in the organization to conceptualize the product idea. The information is then given to the marketing department that carries out a market research to determine the viability of the product. The market research is conducted during market analysis in which market conditions that would affect the development of the product are identified.

The engineering and manufacturing personnel play an important role in the process since they determine the costs needed to produce the product. The engineering and manufacturing personnel are also involved in productivity or costs enhancements and make or buy analysis. Productivity and costs improvements are carried out during analysis of specifications and the amount needed to manufacture the product based on the existing and future market conditions. The personnel carry out these activities during the design phase where they identify design priorities.

They determine the key inputs, activities and outputs, major responsibilities, costs of implementation, timing of implementation, and new processes to be documented and included in the process (O'Connor & Wulf, 2004, p.37). Once the engineering and manufacturing personnel have carried out the first four activities, the supply management personnel carry out the rest of the activities, especially determination of inventory levels. The supply management personnel make the determination based on the information received from the marketing department and the engineering and manufacturing personnel. The personnel.