An empirical study of 57 top-tier suppliers to the North American automotive industry examined the direct and complementary effects of information system infrastructure (ISI) and process improvements on time-based performance. The results show that the three dimensions of ISI ± design-manufacturing integration (DMI), manufacturing technology (MT), and information technology (IT) ± directly influenced at least one dimension of time-based performance. For example, DMI influenced manufacturing

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... time, MT influenced new product development time, and IT influenced customer responsiveness. Process improvement also directly influenced supply-chain time performance. Finally, ISI and process improvement had a positive and complementary effect on time-based performance. Specifically, the IT factor along with process improvement variables (standardization and concurrent engineering) had a complementary and significant positive influence on time-based performance. The findings strongly support the idea of joint deployment of information system infrastructure and process improvement to streamline cycle time performance in a supply chain. The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at