Page 278 - Global Project Management Handbook

CHAPTER 14

PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR
OUTSOURCING DECISIONS

Bopaya Bidanda
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Ozlem Arisoy
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Murat Azim
Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Bopaya Bidanda is the Ernest E. Roth Professor and Chairman of the
Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.
He works actively with regional and national corporations in the area
of manufacturing systems improvement within a global environment.
He has copublished two books with McGraw-Hill (Automated Factor
Handbook and Shared Manufacturing), in addition to over 100 papers
in international journals and conference proceedings.
Ozlem Arisoy has a master’s degree in industrial engineering from the
University of Pittsburgh and is currently a doctoral candidate there.
Her research interests include strategic multicriteria decision making,
outsourcing logistics, and global supply networks. Her work has

appeared in a number of international conference proceedings and
journals.
Murat Azim is a MBA student in the Katz Graduate School of Business
at the University of Pittsburgh. He has several years of experience in
the energy industry and has worked as an electrical engineer in a group
of companies that operate internationally.

The growing outsourcing trend forces companies to transfer their high-cost activities to
low-labor-rate countries. Outsourcing stands out as an attractive option to reduce cost.
However, such an initiative can give a competitive acceleration to a company only if careful
analyses are performed and sound projections are constructed. A systematic project man-
agement approach during the process of outsourcing decisions is always the key driver
behind the success.
Outsourcing decision-making processes can be considered as large size projects that
affect a company’s strategies and future operations. Although these projects can be managed

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