The Implementation of Best Practices : Process and Performance Effects

Much has been written about best practices and world class manufacturing in recent years. Various practices and improvement programs have been suggested as best practices, assuming that their adoption would to lead to higher performance. The implementation process of these practices is, however, often neglected in the literature and, hence, relatively poorly understood. The purpose of this article is to provide insight into that process and how different implementation approaches influence performance. An analysis of the implementation of a range of manufacturing action programs in two companies showed that a broad and incremental implementation approach initially leads to reduced performance followed by a gradual improvement as larger parts of the programs are institutionalized. A big bang implementation approach does not seem to lead to deterioration in performance