Keith Goffin

Managing suppliers: when fewer can mean more

Shows that manufacturing companies place a strong emphasis on the role of supply‐chain management ‐ the management of supplies, suppliers, inventory and distribution. Much of the literature talks about the trend to reduce supplier base. Database analysis gave empirical evidence of this trend in UK manufacturing companies ‐ 201 companies from different industrial sectors cut their supplier base over the last four years, by 9 per cent in the household products sector and approximately 35 per cent in the process, engineering and electronics sectors. Reports on further research at four companies, looking at their experiences with suppliers and establishes that a key reason for supplier base reduction is to free time to manage the remaining suppliers more effectively. Identifies the criteria used for supplier selection and reasons why single‐sourcing was avoided. Suggests that these findings on supplier management have implications for both researchers and managers in industry.

Customer support and new product development ‐ An exploratory study

Customer support is an essential element in the successful marketing of many products – from domestic appliances to high‐tech computer networks. Many aspects of support are strongly influenced by a product’s design and so customer support requirements should be evaluated during new product development. However, researchers have largely ignored the relationship between new product development and customer support. The current study addressed this gap by using case studies and a workshop, both conducted with leading companies, to identify how customer support is typically evaluated at the design stage and to determine the importance of this aspect of new product development. The results have implications for managers responsible for product innovation – they show the need to allocate adequate resources to integrating customer support requirements into new product development.

Customer support: A cross‐industry study of distribution channels and strategies

Customer support, such as equipment maintenance and repair, is an essential element in the successful marketing of a wide range of products, from computer systems to domestic appliances. Consequently, companies need to establish and maintain appropriate channels for high‐quality customer support; either as a part of their own operations or through third parties. This paper describes an exploratory investigation of the distribution channels and customer support strategies of five manufacturing businesses, using case study methodology. The results show the key role that customer support plays in various industries and illustrate the types of decisions companies make on how to provide high‐quality support for their customers. These findings have implications for managers in all industries where customer support is important, as they provide insights on how different channels and strategies affect the quality and efficiency of customer support.

Investigating the meaning of supplier-manufacturer partnerships: an exploratory study

Supplier partnerships can be the key in enhancing the performance of manufacturing companies. Consequently, partnership has been strongly recommended by academics and practitioners alike. Surprisingly, the concept of partnership is only poorly understood. Many authors have identified the advantages that it can bring but far less has been published on the attributes of partnership itself. What is known is that partnerships are “close” relationships and thus, the level of relationship closeness is an appropriate angle for exploring supplier partnerships. Research was conducted using the repertory grid technique with an exploratory sample of ten managers from four German engineering companies. It revealed that supplier partnerships are very different from other forms of relationship and identified five distinct attributes of partnerships. These findings have a number of implications for both practitioners and researchers.

EVALUATING CUSTOMER SUPPORT DURING NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT : AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Anyone who has struggled with a balky computer understands the importance of product support. Useful support for a high-tech product may take various forms, including installation, documentation, field service, user training, and product upgrades. All these forms of support share a common goal: achieving customer satisfaction with the product. To increase the likelihood of customer satisfaction with a high-tech product, a firm must carefully consider the products support requirements during the design stage of the new-product development (NPD) effort. As Keith Goffin points out, however, relatively little research has been published about the manner in which product design influences product support. He suggests that firms may benefit from considering product support requirements during the design stage, in much the same way as design for manufacturability (DFM) techniques enable firms to increase ease of manufacture. In a survey of high-tech firms, he explores the ways in which companies evaluate product support requirements during the design stage. The study also examines whether firms use quantitative goals to focus the design teams attention on a products support needs. To provide deeper understanding of the interrelationship between support requirements and product design, he also presents a case study involving Hewlett-Packards development of a complex medical device. With responses from 66 companies, the survey offers the first empirical data on how compaines plan for product support. Whereas DFM techniques involve consideration of manufacturability during the early stages of design, more than two-thirds of the companies in the study begin planning for support during the second half of the product development process. Only slightly more than one-half of the respondents report the use of a formal product support plan, although use of this type of document is more prevalent among the computer firms in the study. The companies in this study do not consider all aspects of support during product planning. The respondents also do not set quantitative goals for all aspects of support during the design stage. They typically set quantitative goals for service-related aspects of support—for example, product reliability targets such as annual failure rate—rather than for such support areas as user training. The survey responses identify a range of measures which could be used for performing a more comprehensive evaluation of support requirements during the design stage.

Design for Supportability: Essential Component of New Product Development

OVERVIEW: During new product development, R&D engineers consider a wide range of often conflicting requirements, including product features, cost, quality, and manufacturability. Another factor, which companies often neglect, is to ensure that products are easy and economical to service and support—i.e., to install, to maintain, to repair, to operate, etc. Product support is essential for achieving customer satisfaction in many industries, including high-tech sectors such as computing as well as “low-tech” sectors such as domestic appliances and the like. Leading companies recognize both the importance of product support and the significance of evaluating support requirements at the design stage by using Design for Supportability techniques. This enables them to gain competitive advantage from customer support and earn significant revenues.

Repertory Grid Technique

Psychology is a science that focuses on understanding the workings of the brain and how people think. In attempting to understand such complex processes, psychologists do not ask direct questions such as “how do you think?” However, in trying to understand their customers, many companies rely solely on direct questions posed through focus groups and surveys. The challenge in understanding customers should not be underestimated—sophisticated approaches are necessary to generate the insights to develop breakthrough product concepts. So it is not surprising that an approach developed for psychology—repertory grid technique—has important applications in market research.

Manufacturer‐supplier relationships: An empirical study of German manufacturing companies

Purpose – Effective management of suppliers is one of the ways manufacturing companies can improve their performance. Typically, it has been argued in the literature that close relationships with suppliers should be developed, in contrast to the traditional price‐driven transactional relationships. However, there has been relatively little empirical research on how supplier management is applied.Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents research probing how manufacturers manage their suppliers and takes a sample from Germany – which has a large manufacturing sector. In‐depth interviews with purchasing managers were used to understand whether relationships with suppliers were being utilised.Findings – The analysis of the data indicates that a significant portion of the companies surveyed had experienced a change in their relationship with suppliers in the last few years. In the main, relationships had become closer and the use of partnerships was in evidence.Practical implications – The research re...

Managing lessons learned and tacit knowledge in new product development

OVERVIEW: Every new product development (NPD) team learns a unique set of lessons in solving the many problems that arise in a typical project, and it is important to ensure that these lessons are shared. Since much of the learning is tacit in nature, it is difficult to articulate, to capture, and to disseminate. Therefore, managers face a challenge in trying to stimulate project-to-project learning. Many companies hold post-project reviews (PPRs)—meetings at the end of projects to determine the lessons learned and document them for the future. However, discussing a project, noting down the lessons learned, and entering them into a database is not sufficient. Our research at five leading German companies shows that written reports fail to convey much of the key learning from NPD teams and so managers need to focus on stimulating individual learning and running PPRs in specific ways to generate and transfer tacit knowledge. Managers also need to integrate PPRs with other mechanisms, such as mentoring schemes and knowledge brokering, to stimulate the flow of lessons learned and tacit knowledge.

Operations management teaching on European MBA programmes

A comprehensive review of the literature established that several investigations have been made of operations management teaching in the USA, whereas almost nothing has been published on European teaching. Therefore, an exploratory investigation was made of operations management teaching on the MBA courses of ten leading European business schools. The results show that course content is similar across schools, but there are large variations on three dimensions: the time allocated by schools to the subject; the balance between operations strategy and tools and techniques in teaching; and the level of emphasis given to service operations. The results also indicate the emerging importance of integrating operations management with other subjects in the MBA curriculum and the key challenge facing faculty ‐ the need to raise the perceived importance of operations management. The comparison of courses will be of interest to all operations management faculty who teach core courses and particularly those who are looking for ideas on how to re‐design courses.