Purpose – This paper aims to describe an investigation into how company performance can be improved by integrating internal and external customers and technology. The approach was developed, implemented and evaluated in the operations of the building components industry. The research was...

This paper examines the extent to which a learning organisation perspective is attainable in small‐ to medium‐sized manufacturing companies. An audit tool is developed from the literature on organisational learning and recognised processes that lead towards becoming a learning organisation....

This paper describes a project aimed at assessing the experience of a virtual learning environment (VLE) among students studying courses in operations management. The project was supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) under its Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund...

Purpose – In recent decades the automotive industry has established a variety of new forms of logistics integration between automobile assemblers and their suppliers, in particular those in the first tier. The purpose of this paper is to outline which form of logistics integration original...

Links the concept of market‐driven business strategies with the design of production systems. It draws upon the case of a firm which, during the last decade, changed its strategy from being “technology led” to “market driven”. The research, based on interdisciplinary fieldwork...

Describes the basic concept of lean production and the recent trend in Japanese manufacturing which has been towards a cycle comprising price competition, cost reduction, a proliferation of new products, higher fixed costs, increased break even points and lower profits. Explains how Japan’s...

The value of technology and the appropriate form of transfer arrangement are important questions to be resolved when transferring technology between Western manufacturing firms and partners in industrialising and developing countries. This article reports on surveys carried out in the machine...

Flexible Assembly Systems (FASs) are normally associated with the automatic, or robotic, assembly of products, supported by automated material handling systems. However, manual assembly operations are still prevalent within many industries, where the complexity and variety of products prohibit...

This paper addresses the question of how just‐in‐time can be implemented within high variety manufacture. To illustrate some of the principles in relation to the high variety‐low volume situation the case of a computer manufacturer is considered in detail. For contrast the paper also...