Zoe Dann

Agile manufacturing: A management and operational framework

Abstract Manufacturing companies are now operating in fast-moving commercial environments where unanticipated threats and opportunities are the order of the day. Agile manufacturing in such environments means understanding the environment and being flexible, cost effective and productive with consistent high quality. Each company will respond in a different way to deploy its own agile characteristics. This paper describes research that tackles the problem of identifying what characteristics constitute agile manufacture and proposes a framework for evaluating and developing agile manufacturing. Manufacturing enterprises involve people, organization, technology, processes and information, and no commonly accepted practical reference framework exists to investigate, analyse and evaluate the ability to deal with change. The research is based on a wide-ranging review of agile manufacture and manufacturing architectures. From this review, a conceptual agile manufacturing model was developed and used in a study of 18 manufacturing companies. Subsequently, a framework for analysing and developing a companys agile characteristics is described. The paper concludes by discussing three case studies in detail and proposing the key characteristics of agile manufacturing.

Management and Organisational Factors in New Product Development (NPD) Success

The desire to improve the performance of their new product development activities and process is firmly established within companies. This paper describes an attempt to produce an evaluation taxonomy and framework to enable comparisons to assess their NPD performance and the factors leading to success. This framework is based on a products complexities (structural and functional) and related factors and commercial constraints. In particular, it looks at the management and organisational factors involved in NPD and how these may be enhanced to increase NPD success rates. These factors were investigated during a three-year Engineering and Physi cal Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded research programme. The outcome of this research programme is the Assessment Tool and Methodology (ATM) which evaluates a companys NPD activities and process performance. The various ways in which the ATM may be used are explained. Significant findings relating to success in product development are shown from the initial results comparing successful product devel opments from a variety of companies. Also described are the results of a survey of company based NPD performance improvement ap proaches and the related NPD performance measurement systems and metrics being used. The results from the use of the ATM with Japanese companies within Japan are also included as a comparison.

Knowledge, power and trust in SME e-based virtual organisations

This article uses e-business-based SME clusters as a model to explore the issues of collaboration in virtual organisations. It discusses the key issues of e-business for SMEs and how they approach working in partnerships and networks. The role of core competence knowledge equivalency across the partnership is assessed and examined. The influences of knowledge, power and trust on virtual organisations are examined both theoretically and via a major case study with 25 SMEs. Lessons for promoting SME virtual organisations are drawn together with specific recommendations for successful e-business-based partnerships.

Being taken seriously – shaping the pathways taken by Welsh female entrepreneurs

ABSTRACT Despite rapid growth in female entrepreneurship globally, the gender gap in self-employment remains and women’s full contribution to the economy via self-employment continues to be unrealized. Female self-employment is an important agenda given current political interest and policy focus on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) revitalizing the Welsh economy. This paper explores pathways taken by women in Wales at start-up and whilst running their own businesses. Using a phenomenological approach employing narrative techniques and business life histories, a grounded account is provided of entrepreneurial practice from perceptions of female entrepreneurs. In their sense making, female entrepreneurs convey how lack of credibility (in terms of ‘not being taken seriously’) and consequently the pursuit of attaining a level of credibility (which is frequently elusive anyway), strongly shapes business decisions and entrepreneurial experiences. This consequence occurs regardless of levels of educational achievement, previous work experience or industry sector, thereby adding a subliminal layer of complexity to business decisions and strategies.

Improving product development performance

The new product development (NPD) environment is becoming more competitive with the pressures for, and the pace of, change ever increasing. A problem facing companies trying to improve their product development performance is the difficulty of comparing their NPD practice with that found in other companies. It was argued that lasting competitive advantage in NPD can be gained only via improvements to the internal and external aspects of product integrity. Product integrity has two dimensions, internal and external. Internal integrity is a function of the complexity of the internal product structure. External integrity relates to the complexity of the product user interface. The investigation reported in this article sought out ways in which these two complexities could be measured in practice.

A structured, concurrent engineering approach to friction material development

This paper describes the collaboration between BBA Friction Ltd and the University of Liverpool in establishing a Concurrent Engineering (CE) environment that exactly meets the current and future requirements of BBA Friction Ltd. BBA were trying to design a friction materials development process to meet the needs of their customers in a way that would significantly improve material performance, reduce product development lead times and enhance customer satisfaction. The paper describes the concept of CE, BBA Friction Ltds materials development needs and why the CE environment approach was selected. It then goes on to describe how BBA Friction Ltds CE environment was developed, how the implementation was planned and executed and the results of the work. It also shows how a successful collaboration may be conducted between a commercial engineering company and an academic institution.