Knowledge that Transforms

In spite of the significant progress made by a wide range of manufacturing companies over the past decade, few senior executives in U.S. firms would point to manufacturing as a significant source of competitive advantage. This paper seeks to explore some of the basic reasons for this. It begins by providing a framework for manufacturing competitiveness. It then outlines a handful of characteristics that seem to have been pervasive in a wide range of manufacturing competitiveness programs over the past decade. In contrast to those characteristics, it uses three quite different organizations to illustrate a very different mode for pursuing manufacturing competitiveness. Finally, the paper concludes by outlining three elements that appear to be essential in the successful pursuit of manufacturing advantage.

This study examines the issue of demand management in service industries, proposes an expanded description of the term, presents evidence of the importance of demand /capacity management, provides a classification of demand management strategies, and identifies some of the factors that may influence the choice of demand management strategies. The results indicate that industries have different resources, demand patterns, and strategic objectives; this suggests that these differences should influence the choice of demand management strategies. However, the industries studied were less different in their choice of demand management strategies than in the differences indicated by the independent variables. This may result from the. fact that most companies, except utilities, indicated that their demand management programs were largely informal in practice. Most companies use demand management strategies that emphasize customer service‐the provide and match strategies. However, almost without exception, all industries indicated a desire to shift their focus toward the resource utilization side of the range‐the influence and control strategies. In this exploratory study, the findings suggest that there is a need for companies to spend more time in evaluating and planning their demand management strategies.

In light of the widespread adoption of advanced production concepts over the last decade, the traditional concern of manufacturing strategy–linking manufacturing structure and infrastructure to business strategy–has seemed less powerful in explaining competitive success or improving competitive performance. Companies that have introduced just‐in‐time, total quality management, continuous improvement, design for manufacturability, or concurrent engineering appear to have reaped the benefits of quality, dependability, flexibility, high variety, and low cost. This raises an important question: is manufacturing strategy in its traditional vintage passe? In this paper, I first explore the logic behind the traditional prescriptions in manufacturing strategy using a classic case on Searle's Medical Instruments Group. Then, using the term advanced manufacturing system (AMS) as shorthand for best practice in production, design and engineering, and logistics, I revisit the Searle case as taught in 1995 to illustrate the logic of the AMS. Finally, I offer a framework for synthesis, arguing that manufacturing's true competitive power lies in integrating the capabilities of an AMS with strategic management of manufacturing.

The concept and techniques of “manufacturing strategy” offer managers the opportunity to use their production function as a strategic weapon in competition, an apparently attractive objective. Yet after about 25 years, the use of manufacturing in corporate strategy (MCS) as a management practice is not widespread. In contrast, however, in academic literature it appears to be flourishing and rapidly growing in popularity. This paper seeks to answer this apparent paradox, beginning with the history of MCS as it was developed as a theory of design to enable a manufacturing system to be focused on a key competitive task. Common criticisms of MCS, such as “tradeoffs,” “focus” and “undynamic,” are examined and refuted as valid reasons for its only modest usage. Instead, three “new” problems in the MCS concept and its techniques are suggested as genuine needs for the completion of the theory and for its becoming more universally understood and used by industrial managers.

It has been argued in the literature that business strategy and manufacturing flexibility independently affect the performance of an organization. However, no empirical examination of the interrelationship among these three constructs has been performed. In this paper, based on a field study of 269 firms in the manufacturing industry, the identified constructs have been used to test a theoretical model using path analysis techniques. Our results indicate that business strategy contributes both directly and indirectly to organizational performance. The findings provide evidence of direct effects of (i) business strategy on manufacturing flexibility and (ii) manufacturing flexibility on organizational performance.

The concept of “manufacturing strategy” is still, in human terms, barely past adolescence. In years, it is younger than most of the MBAs who study it today. So it is not surprising that–like them–it has been undergoing almost continual growth and elaboration throughout its short life, as it tested itself against the real world and as that world evolved. Today it is facing perhaps the greatest challenge in its short history, as it finds itself in the crossfire of debates about core aspects of its two parent disciplines: manufacturing management and competitive strategy. This paper begins by briefly reviewing some of the key steps in the conceptual development of the manufacturing strategy paradigm, then describes the attacks now being directed at both the manufacturing management and the competitive strategy paradigms, and finally discusses the new perspectives that these two paradigm shifts are shedding on some familiar problems.