Jan Frick

Best manufacturing practices: What do the best‐performing companies do?

Purpose – Research on best practices suffers from some fundamental problems. The problem addressed in the article is that authors tend to postulate, rather than show, the practices they address to be best – whether these practices do indeed produce best performance is often not investigated.Design/methodology/approach – This article assumes that the best performing companies must be the ones deploying the best practices. In order to find out what are those practices, the highest performing companies in the 2002 International Manufacturing Strategy Survey database were identified, and the role 14 practices play in these companies was investigated.Findings – Process focus, pull production, equipment productivity and environmental compatibility appear to qualify as best practices. Quality management and ICT may have been best practice previously, but lost that status. E‐business, new product development (NPD), supplier strategy and outsourcing are relatively new, cannot yet be qualified as, but may develop i...

The formalisation of manufacturing strategy and its influence on the relationship between competitive objectives, improvement goals, and action plans

This paper intends to contribute to a better understanding of manufacturing strategy content by describing and analysing the content and formalisation of manufacturing strategies, and by exploring the relationships between the formalisation of manufacturing strategy, business/competitive objectives, improvement goals, and action plans. The study is based on the data from the third International Manufacturing Strategy Survey, which was conducted in more than 20 countries. The analysis shows that in companies with a formal strategy competitive priorities, improvement goals and action programs are significantly better aligned in companies without such a strategy. This finding is encouraging for operations management scholars, as it suggests that after 30‐odd years Skinners missing link has been re‐discovered, and it supports OM practitioners in their ongoing battle to safeguard the position of manufacturing in the corporate debate.

The trajectory of implementing ISO 9000 standards versus total quality management in Western Europe

This paper investigates the pattern or trajectory of implementing ISO 9000 standards versus TQM in Western Europe from a longitudinal perspective, using empirical data. The research is based on three large‐scale surveys conducted in 1992‐1993, 1996‐1997 and 2001‐2002 respectively, in 13 Western European countries. The results of the surveys show that European companies have put considerable effort into ISO 9000 certification. However, the results also reveal that, around 1996‐1997, European companies had also planned to implement TQM. However, the result of the planned “go beyond ISO to TQM” fell short of the anticipated extent, indicating that the adoption of TQM in Europe was slower than expected. Early in the twenty‐first century, European companies are still very keen on implementing TQM, indicating an obvious intention to shift from ISO 9000 to TQM. To ensure that the shift will occur this time however, the two approaches must be integrated properly. Although both ISO 9000 standards and the TQM/EFQM model have been recently updated or modified, how to best incorporate the two systems remains one of the major tasks of quality management in the future.

Employee involvement and quality management

This paper records the research on the investigation of the empirical relationship between employee involvement (EI) and quality management. It is based on data from a survey of 180 manufacturing companies. The main findings are: EI is positively correlated with total quality management (TQM) enablers; EI is positively correlated with improvements in business performance; EI positively influences the contribution of TQM to the improvement of business performance; EI is marginally related to ISO registration; and EI has no effect on the contribution of ISO 9000 registration. The conclusion is that EI should be incorporated into TQM and ISO 9000 registration. Implications for practice and future research are also discussed.

Activity Chains as a Tool for Integrating Industrial Enterprises

It is important for industrial enterprises to be able to relate CIM technology to the corporate strategy. The paper introduces the concept of “activity chain” to denote a continuous chain of activities associated with the essential tasks of an industrial enterprise, such as product development, production flow, customer orders. This will help industrial enterprises find answers to the following questions: Where to integrate, to which extent, and at which pace? Experience gained from applying the concept in three companies will conclude the paper.

Organizational learning: A neglected dimension of Production Management Systems Design

Many persons and groups are involved in production management in an industrial enterprise. The paper shows that any mode of operations rests on a complex, mutually dependent set of interactions, as a result of individual and organizational learning processes. After a brief outline of the content of these learning processes the paper contrasts a traditional information systems approach and an organizational approach to production management systems design. Finally, practical implications are presented.

Business Model Canvas as Tool for SME

SME needs good tools to overcome the “grow or die” situation many of them reaches a few years after start. This paper describes the strategy of two SMEs, based on a short case study, in the context of Osterwalders’ Business Model Canvas. The investigation try to map whether SMEs, such as the given case studies, actually follow or can utilize a pattern towards success in line with Osterwalders Business Map Canvas. , The work suggests that the Canvas is suitable for mapping purposes of current activities, but not suitable as a “paradigm” or framework to follow when outlining strategies for the future.

A Study of Technological-Organisational Development and Market Dynamics in Denmark and Norway

In recent years, experience in introducing elements of Computer-IntegratedManufacturing (CIM) has brought about a recognition that implementation of CIM should be balanced in regard to both technological and organisational dimensions to obtain true competitive benefits. Empirical studies indicate that many industrial enterprises have been able to apply advanced manufacturing technology successfully, at least technically; however, few companies have been capable of improving their competitive strength (cf. Voss, 1988). As a consequence, attention has been directed towards ways of establishing a balance between technological and organisational means, and towards establishing a link between changes in manufacturing and corporate improvements, for example, in terms of increased competitiveness.

Advances in Production Management Systems. Value Networks: Innovation, Technologies, and Management

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2011, held in Stavanger, Norway, in September 2011. The 66 revised and extended full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 124 papers presented at the conference. The papers are organized in 3 parts: production process, supply chain management, and strategy. They represent the breadth and complexity of topics in operations management, ranging from optimization and use of technology, management of organizations and networks, to sustainable production and globalization. The authors use a broad range of methodological approaches spanning from grounded theory and qualitative methods, via a broad set of statistical methods to modeling and simulation techniques.

Factors affecting pouring ready mix concrete production rate using tower cranes in Egypt

Poor productivity of construction industry is one of the causes of cost and time overruns in construction projects. The first stage to control this problem is to identify factors affecting productivity and analyse them in order to control their effect in productivity. In Egypt, construction productivity is influenced by several factors that vary from project to project as well as from task to task within the same project. The pouring of ready mixed concrete (PRMC) using tower cranes is the essential activity in contemporary construction and engineering projects especially in high-rise building projects. The obstacle here is that there are several factors affecting the production rate. Moreover, the accuracy of estimating this production rate is limited by the multi-variants nature of the problem. For this reason, the aim of this research is to identify factors affecting pouring concrete, and investigate how each of these factors| influences the production rate from a careful review of literature selected based on direct site observation. Therefore, the analysis and investigations of these factors should give the site managers, site engineers and project managers an advanced view for dealing with these factors in the future.