The ability of manufacturing companies to adapt to their changing environment is frequently a key to long‐term success. As a consequence the strategic flexibility of manufacturing operations has become an increasingly important issue for organisations. There have been much theoretical work and...

This paper examines the competitive dimensions of quality for first tier suppliers in the automotive industry. A theoretically relevant set of quality variables is identified from the literature. The results of a factor analysis show that quality is a two dimensional construct in the automotive...

It is widely accepted that firms should have manufacturing strategies consistent with their overall business strategies, but while much has been written about the content of these strategies, little has been said about how they should be developed and realized. Reports on research which set out...

Reviews the scale and scope of existing survey‐based studies of manufacturing plants and discusses the contribution which the UK Best Factory Awards Database may be able to make. Outlines the process of selecting the winners, proposes a working model which relates performance and strategy, and...

A well developed manufacturing strategy is becoming increasingly important to many manufacturing organizations. A major feature of such a strategy is the definition of a manufacturing infrastructure that is consistent with how products and services compete in the selected market. The managerial...

Australian manufacturing enterprises are seen to be facing enormous pressures in terms of international competition and turbulent external environments, and longer‐term investment in training and staff development (TSD) is seen to be essential to produce the highly skilled and flexible...

Purpose – This paper aims to analyze manufacturing strategy process (MSP) from a knowledge‐based view (KBV) of the firm. MSP considers the ways that manufacturing organizes its resources in order to create/strengthen manufacturing‐related capabilities. In this context, managers often are...

A major survey into the marketing practices of higher and lower performing groups of UK‐based medium‐sized manufacturing companies is reviewed. Data were collected by means of a mail questionnaire survey together with a smaller number of personal interviews. The research findings are...

This article investigates the relationship between the functional areas of manufacturing and human resources by analysing the practices of human resource management associated with the competitive priorities of manufacturing strategy, e.g. quality, delivery performance, flexibility and cost....