Purpose – The ability of a manufacturing system to respond to customer demand in a timely fashion is widely accepted as a source of competitive advantage. While quick response concepts at system level have been widely discussed in a range of industry sectors, such as textile, electronics and...

Collaboration in the supply chain has been widely discussed, and a wealth of concepts is at hand. Large-scale projects like the Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) in the fast moving consumer goods sector, for example, or Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and...

The application of lean thinking has made a significant impact both in academic and industrial circles over the last decade. Fostered by a rapid spread into many other industry sectors beyond the automotive industry, there has been a significant development and “localisation” of the lean...

Providing a variety of attributes in products is an important way of attracting customers, but it often increases complexity and managerial cost. We drew on two data sets collected in the automotive sector to explore the link between external variety (the variety offered the customer) and...

Realizing product customization as ‘just a mouse click away’ is the ultimate dream of many organizations and customers. To date though, mass customization is generally delivered through standardized products or custom-assembly of standardized components – often neglecting the product...

When it comes to thinking about scale, the assumption of corporate leaders since Henry Ford's day has been that bigger is better. And in many situations, such thinking is inarguably correct because of the cost efficiencies that size provides. But sometimes efficiencies can mask opportunities. In...

This paper describes how a participative simulation model is used to demonstrate supply chain dynamics and to model possible improvements to an entire supply chain. A three-year research project in the automotive steel supply chain found that lack of understanding of the core processes...

The underlying research discussed in this paper is derived from a research programme along three tiers of an automotive steel supply network. The main objective of the initial research was to pinpoint wasteful activities in the supply chain, and in later stages, to develop solutions. The...

Describes a two‐ and, later, a three‐dimensional view of supply chain dynamics within a theoretical framework derived from research carried out in the UK automotive industry. However, the authors believe that the models developed have a far wider applicability than this narrow sectoral and...

Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of decentralised control on finished goods inventory levels in a distribution system, and to identify the factors that determine the overall inventory level. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The authors' study is based on a mixed...