C.J. Backhouse

Postponement: a review and an integrated framework

The concept of postponement has a long history of academic literature and practical applications. The recent literature has also well documented that the need for postponement is driven by todays market and business environment. However, its applications are still not as widespread as expected. Therefore, we are interested in what factors enable or hinder the successful implementation of postponement. After a review on postponement, we propose an integrated framework that will help to develop a set of general ideas on which further work can be based. The practical difficulties associated with moving toward postponement are also included in this framework. The objective is also to understand better the challenges that exist in implementing postponement strategies.

Management of uncertainty through postponement

It has long been recognized that one of the most important tasks for any organization to cope with is uncertainties. However, uncertainty in the business environment has still been the main cause of failure in industry. The paper investigates the role of postponement in the management of uncertainty. The concept of postponement is developed to include product development postponement, purchasing postponement, production postponement and logistics postponement. These postponement strategies are all presented to cope with different levels of uncertainty. Finally, conclusions are drawn and some remarks about further research are made.

Transformational leadership and organizational culture: the situational strength perspective

Abstract This paper provides a new leadership alignment model incorporating various concepts focusing on leadership styles, organizational leadership, and situational strength. These concepts are brought together to introduce a leadership model, which looks not only at individual leadership and the effect of that on the organization but also at an organization as a system and how leadership behaviour and culture in individual departments or sections in an organization can be explained. Based on the work of Podsakoff et al., a 23-item measure of transformational leadership questionnaire was employed to evaluate transformational leaders. 339 followers from five manufacturing companies were asked to complete the questionnaire about their leaders and it was analysed to identify transformational leaders. The 76 manufacturing leaders then completed the organizational culture assessment instrument and a situational strength questionnaire, which was used to study the hypothesis.

Managing Relationships to Improve Performance: A case study in the global aerospace industry

Organizations wishing to succeed in the competitive climate of the contemporary marketplace will need to differentiate themselves from competitors. World-class product development is considered the key to competitive advantage and, to compete effectively in global markets, organizations need to be proficient at this core activity. The knowledge-intensive process of product development will benefit from strategic alliances with customers based on trust and mutual benefit. This paper reports on research which developed a managerial tool that allows manufacturing organizations to understand the impacts of relationships at the boundaries of their internal and external activities. It focuses upon the importance of collaboration to forming and maintaining productive relationships within and between organizations. Such an approach will help organizations, and the individuals within them, to identify appropriate internal and inter-organizational network development strategies. An important assumption that underlies its development is that the model will improve project and product development performance by improving communication flows through enhanced networked relationships between team members, and hence improve the overall performance of the organization. This paper sets the research context and presents results of action research with a team of engineers from a large organization in the aerospace industry. It reveals the crucial importance of trust in underpinning successful internal and inter-organizational relationships. It is suggested that the tool provides a convenient methodology for measuring and benchmarking relational network performance.

Understanding concurrent engineering implementation: A case-study approach

Concurrent engineering is a widely recognized approach to improving product introduction and it is therefore key that its implementation is understood. This paper augments the existing understanding of concurrent engineering implementations by using a case-study approach. The benefits of this are reviewed and the results of nine industrial case-studies are presented. An amalgamated picture of the results of both research approaches is used to highlight how concurrent engineering may be more widely implemented. In the course of the examination, a vocabulary to enable a common understanding of concurrent engineering was developed and this is also presented in this paper.

The implications of organizational culture and trust in the working of virtual teams

Abstract The research described in this paper is concerned with examining trust issues in global teams and whether there are any implications for trust in respect to the cultural orientation of firms. Trust is the individuals (or groups) belief that another individual (or group) makes good faith efforts to behave in accordance with any commitments both explicit and implicit. This research was carried out as part of a collaborative project between Loughborough and Aston Universities. In this research it was decided to measure whether there was a relationship between perceived levels of trust in the organization and organizational culture as depicted by Cameron and Quinn in the working dynamics of virtual organizations. The research investigated the issue of trust in a number of business situations and showed that there does appear to be a relationship between trust and cultural orientation of firms for the working of virtual teams.

Concurrent engineering: What's working where

Concurrent Engineering aims to maximize profitability through the shortening of new product introduction time. But, whilst the overall philosophy may be clear, the precise details of what form of Concurrent Engineering is most appropriate for any given set of circumstances is not so well defined. Specific cases of successful implementation need to be understood within their context to ensure success if repeated elsewhere. This work addresses this issue by developing a framework within which all the influencing pressures acting on a company can be considered. The framework shows how these pressures can be categorized and then related to the elements which come together to form the Concurrent Engineering solution. The core of the text is a series of case studies written by industrialists. In each chapter companies which have employed similar approaches to Concurrent Engineering are compared. The case studies range from multinationals, such as Rolls-Royce, IBM and Marconi, through to smaller enterprises. By reference to these real examples, executives concerned with evaluating or implementing Concurrent Engineering can see how the most appropriate techniques can be selected and introduced into their own compnay.

Evaluating existing approaches to product‐service system design: A comparison with industrial practice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how representative the literature is in identifying industrial practice to designing product‐service systems (PSSs).Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyses literature to report on the existing approaches used to design PSSs. A single exploratory case study approach, based on semi‐structured interviews and archival data analysis, was used to understand an existing product‐service organisations approach to designing PSSs. A total of 12 senior managers were interviewed from a cross section of the organisation, to gain multiple perspectives on the PSS design process and ten company reports were analysed.Findings – The research has identified that the PSS design process reported by literature is not representative, lacking inputs and outputs to some phases and feedback. In total, 18 inputs and 11 outputs have been identified from the case study that are not reported by the literature. These create five feedback loops within the PSS design process u...

Agile value chains for manufacturing – implications for performance measures

This paper will focus on the implications for value chain performance measures arising from the rapidly emerging requirement for agility both within individual business units and across sophisticated manufacturing value chains. Recent developments in the way companies are expected to respond to rapid and unpredictable change in the external environment have resulted in new paradigms for manufacturing which comprise a combination of leanness, agility and virtual enterprises. The primary focus of academic researchers has been in the area of determining how agility is attained in order that organisational structures can best be designed. However, the concept that “what you measure is what you get” is equally valid for virtual organisations as it has always been for stand‐alone manufacturing businesses. This paper therefore discusses the requirements for new approaches to performance measures and raises some of the issues that need to be developed further in support of the concept of agility.

An Empirical Investigation into the Barriers to Postponement

The need for postponement is significantly driven by todays business and marketing environment. However, currently its applications are still not as widespread as expected. Therefore, this paper empirically investigates what factors hinder the adoption and implementation of postponement, and whether postponement applications are expected to increase in practice. Following a literature review on how to prompt and progress postponement applications, we present our research design. Namely, a questionnaire survey was conducted (by way of both post and e-mail) among 368 British manufacturing companies across four industrial sectors to help build statistical generalizations on the barriers to postponement. Then, we provide demographic data and response rate, and assess the reliability and validity of the survey instruments. The results from our questionnaire survey indicate that most of the highest ranked barriers were related to how a company manages its external networks (suppliers or customers), while those barriers related to distributors were put towards the bottom of the list. The respondents also expected postponement to be less used in three years. Finally, we draw some conclusions, determine limitations of this research and make suggestions for future research.