Excerpt from Manufacturing Strategy: A Methodology and an Illustration
For most industrial companies, the manufacturing Operation is the largest, the most complex, and the most difficult - to - manage component of the firm. Because of this complexity, it is essential for firms to have a comprehensive manufacturing strategy to aid in organizing and managing the firm’s manufacturing system. This paper provides a process and a structured methodology for conceptual izing and formulating a manufacturing strategy.
The manufacturing strategy cannot be formed in.a vacuum; it affects and is affected by many organizations inside and outside the firm. Because of the interrelationships among the firm’s manufacturing unit, the firm’s divisions and other functions, and the firm’s competitors and markets, it is necessary to carry the process of manufacturing-strategy design beyond the borders of the manufacturing organization in a single firm. Figure illustrates the extent of these interrelationships and emphasizes the two basic types of inter actions that must be considered for manufacturing strategy design. First, in developing and implementing the manufacturing strategy, the manufacturing function must work in concert with the finance, marketing, engineering and r&d, personnel, and purchasing functions. Cooperation and consistency of overall objectives are the keys to success in these types of interactions. Second, manufacturing strategy design requires careful monitoring of the markets external to the firm in conjunction with the aforementioned functional groups within the firm. For example, manufacturing managers, in conjunction with the engineering group, may monitor developments in the electronics industry so that they are aware of new applications of electronics to process technology in their industry. Similarly, manufacturing, in conjunction with marketing, monitors the product markets in which they compete so they are aware of the product improvements and product introductions of their competitors.
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