In recent years, time‐based competition (TBC) has drawn the attention of several practitioners and academicians. Much evidence has been put forward from case studies in order to show the benefits that derive from time compression. Nevertheless, there is a lack of conceptual models and...

As customers ask for increasing levels of performance, functionality and customisation, firms rely on suppliers not only as a source of components, but also as a source of innovation. Several researchers have investigated the adoption of co‐design, its potential benefits and its costs....

Purpose – In many industrial contexts, firms are encountering increasingly uncertain demand. Numerous factors are driving this phenomenon; however, a major change that is spreading among different sectors is the ever‐growing attention to customers. Companies have identified that customers...

Notes that supporting small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in their process towards the adoption of business process re‐engineering (BPR) may be essential as the tools and methodologies of BPR were designed for larger companies. Presents a methodology for the design of support services,...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence on how smart manufacturing (SM) affects work organization at both micro-level – i.e. work design, described in terms of operator job breadth and autonomy, cognitive demand and social interaction – and at macro-level – i.e....

Defines a new manufacturing paradigm and investigates its adoption and performances, within the assembly industry on a global basis. The definition of the paradigm is based on a set of basic principles to design and manage production systems which discard the traditional way of organizing...

The evolution of production models raises a number of questions on the changes which are taking place, on the continuity of or break with consolidated models, and on whether new production paradigms are emerging. Traces back this broad and multi‐faceted debate to five theses which summarise...

Part of a research programme being undertaken in Italy on the applicability of the just‐in‐time (JIT) approach. The programme includes both the development of methodological concepts to evaluate JIT applicability and an extensive survey of the value of JIT implementation as seen by Italian...

Gives results of a survey on the application of the just‐in‐time (JIT) approach in Italy, based on a sample of 173 industrial companies. The methodological framework used to evaluate JIT application was described in a previous article ( International Journal of Operations & Production...

Explores the implementation process of the customer‐supplier partnership in the machinery industry. Aims to assess the dynamic impacts on performance of various practices that are generally regarded as typical of a customer‐supplier partnership. Also, investigates internal consistency of...