Ah Richards

Testing manufacturing strategy formulation processes

Abstract The process of formulating and implementing manufacturing strategy is one of the key tasks for operations managers; however, it is extremely complex and not well understood. Over the years there have been many attempts to both prescribe and describe strategy formulation processes but the literature on the rigorous testing of prescribed processes is sparse. This paper discusses the testing of one such process for formulating manufacturing strategy, and reports findings. Two aspects are addressed: the initial testing of the process to assess feasibility, usability and utility; and more detailed testing to investigate factors which affect the implementation of the process. This detailed testing is being carried out as a preliminary step to investigating the tailoring of the process to different contextual factors. The paper begins by briefly outlining the strategy formulation process which is under test. This process has been developed in stages since 1987 and has been widely applied in various forms over this period. Having described the process, the paper then discusses testing problems and presents the rationale behind the testing approach chosen.

Evaluating manufacturing strategy formulation processess

Abstract Over the years many manufacturing strategy formulation processes have been developed and criteria for judging the resulting strategies have been suggested. However, little work has been reported on the criteria against which the formulation processes can be judged. This paper proposes a way of evaluating a manufacturing strategy formulation process rather than evaluating the resulting strategy. The criteria proposed in this paper are developed from the business and manufacturing strategy literature and then tested and refined in a case study. Finally preliminary conclusions are described which highlight apparent conflicts between desirable criteria and which suggest potentially important factors to be considered in the design of a manufacturing strategy formulation process.