Roy Westbrook

Arcs of Integration: An International Study of Supply Chain Strategies

Though there is a wide acceptance of the strategic importance of integrating operations with suppliers and customers in supply chains, many questions remain unanswered about how best to characterize supply chain strategies. Is it more important to link with suppliers, customers, or both? Similarly, we know little about the connections between supplier and customer integration and improved operations performance. This paper investigated supplier and customer integration strategies in a global sample of 322 manufacturers. Scales were developed for measuring supply chain integration and five different strategies were identified in the sample. Each of these strategies is characterized by a different arc of integration, representing the direction (towards suppliers and/or customers) and degree of integration activity. There was consistent evidence that the widest degree of arc of integration with both suppliers and customers had the strongest association with performance improvement. The implications for our findings on future research and practice in the new millennium are considered.

SWOT Analysis: It's Time for a Product Recall

The attempt to improve the corporate strategy development process has fostered a range of approaches which have enjoyed different levels of support and popularity over time. One of the most popular is the SWOT analysis. This article reports on an in-depth review of its use by consuitants who included this as part of their approach to understanding a business from a corporate perspective and as part of the Department of Trade and Industrys Manufacturing Planning and Implementation Scheme. Of the 50 companies reviewed within the scheme, over 20 companies used a SWOT involving 14 consulting companies. All the applications showed similar characteristics-long lists (over 40 factors on average), general (often meaningless) descriptions, a failure to prioritize and no attempt to verify any points. But the most worrying general characteristic was that no-one subsequently used the outputs within the later stages of the strategy process. The continued use of the SWOT analysis, therefore, needs to be questioned.

Demand chain management in manufacturing and services: web-based integration, drivers and performance

This paper investigated the relationship between Internet-enabled supply chain integration strategies and performance in manufacturing and services. It summarizes the literature on demand and supply integration and describes four web-based strategies. A stratified random sample was collected from UK manufacturers and services, and there was strong evidence that demand chain management (DCM) led to the highest performance in manufacturing, but few signs of DCM in services. Manufacturers and services relying on only web-based demand or supply integration outperformed their low integration counterparts, but lagged DCM in manufacturing. The study also investigated DCM adoption drivers and found that rational efficiency and bandwagon effects drove change. The findings have some important implications for theory as well as for manufacturing and service companies interested in improving their performance.

New Strategic Tools for Supply Chain Management

Intense global competition has created a highly demanding customer. To serve his needs for highvariety, low cost, sound quality and easy availability, organisations are looking beyond their own boundaries to the management of their supply chains. In this they have been inspired by the typical Far Eastern, and the very best Western, practice. But supply chain management is still a hope not a reality for many companies. On the one hand there is an array of “panaceas” on offer for our “sick” businesses; new technology, computer integrated manufacturing, the Just-in-Time approach, total quality management, and more besides. On the other hand supply chain management has few specific tools of its own. To the manager busy holding on to his market share it is difficult to see where to start the process of making his operation more competitive. A three-stage approach to help companies see just which actions are likely to get the supply chain into better competitive shape is proposed. Also introduced are two simple graphical tools to help management develop a strategy for enhanced supply chain effectiveness: the pipeline map and the supplier relationship grid.

An international study of quality improvement approach and firm performance

Investigates what approaches to quality lead to best quality and financial performance across different regions of the world. Reports a survey of 977 firms in Asia/South Pacific, Europe, and North America. Fifty‐two items that suggest how a firm might improve quality were factor analysed and grouped into 11 factors, each factor a broader approach to quality improvement than any one item. Actual quality was measured eight different ways. Each approach to quality improvement (factor) was correlated to each quality measure, as well as to several financial measures. The results suggest that a company’s approach to quality correlates to actual quality and to a lesser extent to financial performance. The major factors found to influence actual quality were the organization’s knowledge of quality management, its degree of customer focus, and management involvement. When the task was to predict performance outcomes in any region, the specific factors that best predict performance were found to vary from region to region. That is, there were specific models within a region that better predicted performance than the model which predicted performance across all regions.

Action research: a new paradigm for research in production and operations management

The continuing debate on production and operations management (POM) research has led to a new emphasis on empirical methods. Claims that, while surveys and case research are increasingly recommended to POM researchers, action research has been relatively neglected. The distinct characteristic of action research is the intervention by the researcher in the situation under study. The nature of the intervention, and of action research outputs, differs however from consulting or from the applications reported by APICS. Explains these differences and offers a simple model of action research. Action research is particularly valuable for theory building, as has been seen in the fields of organization behaviour (OB) and management information systems (MIS), where qualitative methods have often been employed rather than traditional scientific methods. POM researchers can learn from the experience of other disciplines and use action research to create new theory. Since many POM researchers will be unfamiliar with action research, explores some practical aspects of conducting such investigations with illustrations from the author′s own research experience. Concludes by showing that a properly conducted action research project can be as rigorous as other methods.

Implications of Mass Customisation for Operations Management: An Exploratory Survey

This paper reports the results of a survey conducted to explore issues surrounding mass customization and in particular its implications for operations management. The findings cover the market changes driving customization, the methods used to provide customized goods, the positive and negative effects of customization, and the difficulties of implementation. There are shown to be important implications for operations management in a strategy of mass customization, and thus substantial scope for further research by operations management academics.

Closing the Gap: A Polemic on Plant-based Research in Operations Management

There has been a growing call from within the operations management (OM) academic community for research of more managerial relevance. This has implied a greater emphasis on empirical research: surveys, cases, and action research. But in fact these types are quite different. However, the great majority of empirical OM work published is based on postal surveys and/or interviewing executives, where research method selection is made for reasons of practical convenience and academic expectation. Given the level of complexity involved in understanding the OM perspective of business issues then the emphasis should be placed on plant‐based research. Conducting research on‐site and investigation through the analysis of relevant data, issues, developments and events ensures relevance and a validity essential to making an impact on business practice. There are obstacles to increasing the amount of plant‐based research which is carried out, such as practical and personal difficulties, a mistaken concern over research rigour, and academic institutional inertia. Each of these needs to be overcome if OM research is to influence business practice more in the future than it has in the past.

Orderbook Models for Priority Management: a Taxonomy of Data Structures

In the 1980s a research team from London Business School designed and installed information systems in a number of UK batch manufacturing companies. The companies had little formal manufacturing planning and control (MPC), and the volatile market and complex production situation of each led to a highly rapid response orientation we characterize as priority management. This style was appropriate for the situation of these companies and the systems designed for them were intended to support their approach, not to replace it with a more formal prescriptive system. After initial projects with no preconceived framework, the focus emerged on the appropriate data structure for order progressing — or order-book model — as the central need of such companies. Orderbook models were then designed for all subsequent companies (17 in total), many of whom still use these models. The article describes the preconditions for priority management by summarizing the sources of complexity — variety, variation, and volume — found in the collaborating companies. These conditions preclude tight formal planning and control, and require data structures which give vision over the relative merits of different priority choices. The orderbook models, designed to give such vision, are not purely company specific but can be classified into types. The classification scheme has three main dimensions: capacity commitment (make-to-stock, etc), product structure/assembly form, and the style of progressing orders through all their different stages. The options within each dimension give a total of 48 possible configurations of orderbook model. These concepts were developed using action research: practical application came first, and theory was developed by generalizing from the experience. This is a non-traditional research methodology in operations management (OM), but will in the future be increasingly important if OM research is to meet the needs of practitioners for relevance as well as the needs of the research community for rigor.

Organising for Total Quality: Case Research from Japan

Research on quality in Japan has emphasized technical issues, but there is much to be learned from more organizational elements. Presents material from major Japanese corporations on the role of the centre in quality, the organizing of quality training, and long-term planning for quality. The research was carried out over four visits to Japan between 1989 and 1992. Emphasizes that there are still quality lessons to be learned from Japan.