Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to improve the efficacy of professional support services and teaching processes within a leading UK university so that they align better to changing academic requirements and external market forces, using a novel systems thinking methodology. A case study...

Discusses the necessity for the conscious recognition of the phenomenon known as the extended enterprise; this demands that product, process and supply chain design are all considered simultaneously. Structure must be given to the extended enterprise in order to understand and manage it...

Purpose – The purpose of the work discussed in this paper is to understand, analyse and benchmark the “Packing and Filling” processes within BASF. A benchmarking project is described in detail which aimed to cover sites in different countries that supplied many different variants of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe how the application of systems thinking to designing, managing and improving business processes has resulted in a new and unique holonic‐based process modeling methodology know as process orientated holonic modeling....

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate dependencies that arise between companies during the ramp-up of production volume in the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain. Design/methodology/approach: An inter-company case study method has been used. Data were collected via tours of...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to know which growth-impeding constraints are perceived to act upon operations of small- to medium-sized (SME) companies by their owner-managers and to recommend transitionary paths to elevate constraints and increase contribution levels made by SMEs’...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems development and emerging practices in the management of enterprises (i.e. parts of companies working with parts of other companies to deliver a complex product and/or service) and identify any...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of high-value manufacturing (HVM) concepts in Scottish SMEs and define how they are being used to gain competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach – Cross-sectional research carried out using a large-scale survey of 435...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of quality management training by reviewing commonly used critical success factors and tools rather than the overall methodological approach. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology used a web‐based...