Mattias Hallgren

Lean and agile manufacturing: external and internal drivers and performance outcomes

Purpose - Lean and agile manufacturing are two initiatives that are used by manufacturing plant managers to improve operations capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to investigate internal and ...

Differentiating manufacturing focus

In order for a manufacturing firm to be competitive, by supporting the market requirements through the manufacturing function, manufacturing should focus on a narrow set of tasks. Focused manufacturing is concerned with the perspectives when designing a manufacturing facility, be it a factory, plant, or plant within a plant. Traditionally, focus has been on the product, the process, or the manufacturing task based on competitive priorities (order winners and qualifiers). So far, the literature implies that a certain facility should have only one focus. In this paper, we present a framework that differentiates focus with respect to different parts of the manufacturing value chain. The point around which focus needs to be differentiated is the customer order decoupling point. We associate alternative types of focus relative to the customer order decoupling point, separating the upstream and downstream parts, and create a framework for choosing focus and how to differentiate manufacturing focus.

A hybrid model of competitive capabilities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present and test a new model for competitive capabilities.Traditionally, a cumulative model has been viewed as having one sequence of building competitivec ...