Corporate Strategy and Systems Integration Capabilities: Managing Networks in Complex Systems Industries

This chapter identifies two analytical categories of systems integration in multi-technology multi-component products, namely synchronic and diachronic. Synchronic systems integration refers to the technological capabilities required to set the product concept design, decompose it, coordinate the network of suppliers, and then recompose the product within a given family. Diachronic systems integration refers to the technological capabilities to envisage and move progressively towards different and alternative paths of product architectures (i.e., new product families) to meet evolving customer requirements.