The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of business type upon the adoption process for quick response (QR) technologies in the apparel industry. Using Rogers’ (1983) innovation decision process model as our conceptual basis, we empirically investigated three stages of that process...

According to researchers and managers, there is a lack of agreement between marketing and manufacturing managers on critical strategic issues. However, most of the literature on the subject is anecdotal and little formal empirical research has been done. Three companies are investigated to study...

The process of identifying and ranking the competitive factors is critical to management for formulating manufacturing strategy because it prioritizes criteria by which manufacturing performance will eventually be evaluated. An empirical study of 382 US computer and electronics firms shows that...

The focus of this paper is on purchasing and supplier involvement in the firm. Using the resource‐base view of the firm, hypotheses are developed concerning purchasing/supplier involvement, strategic purchasing and firm’s financial performance. A model of the hypothesized relationships is...

The primary objective of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is to help integrate an organization's business operations and processes effectively and efficiently. Not all firms have been successful in their ERP implementations and to that end research has helped to identify many factors...

Centralisation and decentralisation of the US economy is examined. How the organisational structures are changing, and why these changes are coming about, reasons such as technology changes in computers and communications, to the move from an agricultural to an industrial to a more service...

For the plant manager there are many suggested remedies for increased plant productivity. Detailed survey data from 555 factories, principally in the US, Europe and Korea, are used to examine the factors that contribute to productivity. Regression analysis is employed with five distinct measures...

In this article a case study is reported which deals with identifying the sources of downtime, and a procedure which could help management to predict whether the daily production standards in auto assembly‐line operations could be met given the intensity of sources of downtime. This study was...

In this article the properties of relational database management systems (DBMSs) are discussed. It is shown how they can be used as an effective tool for performing the function of primary‐key‐coding schemes for classifying product families in the application of group technology. The...

Champion Irrigation Products is a company which has started to employ the principles of Cellular Manufacturing in its operations. Undertakes the task of examining the applicability of Cellular Manufacturing at the company by using several methods for cell formation. Describes the design and...