Abstract
The need for a business to resolve the issues of process choice in line with the manufacturing strategy requirement has been paramount in the book so far. To reiterate, companies must clearly understand which manufacturing processes can best meet the needs of the marketplace, or how well existing processes provide the order-winners for products in different segments. However, the task facing manufacturing is not simply to choose the process and necessary hardware. Once this has been analysed and the trade-offs reconciled, the emphasis shifts. It must now ensure that the structure and composition of the component parts, or functions, which provide the necessary systems and communications within a company are also developed in line with the manufacturing strategy requirement. Process choice concerns the features of hardware, the tangible ways in which the products are manufactured; but the task is more than this. The supporting structures, controls, procedures and other systems within manufacturing are equally necessary for successful, competitive manufacturing performance.
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Notes and references
T. J. Peters and R. H. Waterman, Jr, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies (New York: Harper & Row, 1982).
R. H. Hayes and S. C. Wheelwright, Restoring Our Competitive Edge: Competing through Manufacturing (New York: John Wiley, 1984), p. 32.
Ibid, p. 33. 4. The 80/20 rule reflects the implied relationship between two sets of data or consequences. In this instance, it illustrates that 80 per cent of the total strategic benefit to be gained from infrastructure development will arise from 20 per cent of the areas of application. The use of the figures 80 and 20, however, is illustrative of the relationship implied in the selected phenomenon, and is not intended to be definitive.
This expression, 0–100 management was developed to highlight the pendulum-like response to problems or disadvantages that typifies organizational action. On the other hand, companies need to reposition themselves on a gradual and continuous basis while clearly recognizing that the diverse nature of markets will require diverse response.
‘A New Target: Reducing Staff and Levels’, Business Week, 21 December 1981, pp. 38–41.
Peters and Waterman, In Search of Excellence, p. 306.
A detailed review of the changes at DuPont’s Maitland plant is given in D. Stoffman’s ‘Less Is More’, Report on Business Magazine, June 1988, pp. 90–101.
This and some of the other concepts discussed here are taken from a set of well-developed work-structuring principles that have been presented in various unpublished papers, 1979–81, by P. C. Schumacher, Schumacher Projects, Godstone, Surrey, UK.
A key feature of quality circles (dealt with later in this chapter) is that those involved not only implement their ideas but also evaluate the gains they yield.
Stoffman, ‘Less Is More’, pp. 97–8.
See E. E. Lawler III and G. E. Ledford Jr,’ skill-based Pay: A Concept That’s Catching On’, Management Review, February 1987, pp. 46–51.
These figures are provided in a year-by-year review of the adoption of quality circles within Japanese business: Forman Quality Control, 256 (1984), p. 59.
Other references to the adoption and outcomes of quality circles include ‘Why Does Britain Want Quality Circles?’, Production Engineer, February 1980, pp. 45–6; three articles published in S. M. Lee and G. Schwendiman (eds), Management by Japanese Systems (New York: Praeger, 1982), Part II, Quality Circles, pp. 65–118
T. Hill, Production/Operations Management (Hemel Hempstead: Prentice-Hall, 1991), pp. 374–7; R. J. Schonberger, Japanese Manufacturing Techniques: Nine Hidden Lessons in Simplicity, ch. 8, ‘Quality Circles, Work Improvement and Specialization’, pp. 181–98
M. Robson, Quality Circles in Action (Aldershot: Gower, 1984)
D. H. Hutchins, Quality Circles Handbook (London: Pitman, 1985)
I. A. Temple and B. G. Dale, White Collar Quality Circles in UK Manufacturing Industry: A Study, Occasional Paper Series, no. 8510, Department of Management Sciences (Manchester: UMIST, 1985); E. E. Lawler and W. A. Mohrmann, ‘Quality Circles: After the Fad’, Harvard Business Review, January–February 1985, pp. 65–7; and
B. G. Dale and J. Lees, The Development of Quality Circle Programmes (London: Manpower Services Commission, 1986). In addition, J. R. Arbose in his editorial, ‘Quality Control Circles: The West Adopts a Japanese Concept’, International Management, December 1980, pp. 31–9, provides a wide-ranging list of savings achieved from applications in various countries, a checklist for starting up and K. Ishikawa’s list of the eight tools of problem analysis in which group leaders need to be trained.
R. Wood, F. Hull and K. Azumi, ‘Evaluating Quality Circles: The American Application’, California Management Review, 26, no. 1 (Fall 1983), pp. 37–53.
Arbose, ‘Quality Control Circles’, p. 31.
The Lean Enterprise Benchmarking Project, Andersen Consulting Cardiff Business School and University of Cambridge (1993).
The dimension of quality referred to here is conformance.
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is a US Government industry venture but supported solely by the industry-funded Baldrige Award Foundation. Started in 1988, the programme entails assessment against the criteria given in Table 10.4.
P. Burrows, ‘Five Lessons You Learn from (Baldrige) Award Entrants’, Electronic Business, 15 October 1990, pp. 22–4.
Interestingly, Japanese respondents in the same Manufacturing Futures Survey placed product quality as their number-four competitive priority. They are apparently now looking to other priorities to give them a competitive edge.
B. C. P. Rayner, ‘Market-driven Quality: IBM’s Six Sigma Crusade’, Electronics Business, 15 October 1990, pp. 26–30.
There are many references to the advantages to be gained and examples of the results of such decisions. These include J. M. Juran, ‘Product Quality — A Prescription for the West’, Management Review, June 1981, pp. 9–20; Schonberger, Japanese Manufacturing Techniques, pp. 47–82 and 181–98; D. A. Garvin, ‘Quality on the Line’, Harvard Business Review, September–October 1983, pp. 65–75; C. Lorenz, ‘A Shocking Indictment of American Mediocrity’, Financial Times, 17 October 1983; T. Kona, Strategy and Structure of Japanese Enterprises (New York: Macmillan, 1984), pp. 194–6.
M. Imai, Kaizen: The Key to Japanese Competitive Success (New York: Random House, 1986), ch. 3
T. G. Gunn, Manufacturing for Competitive Advantage: Being a World Class Manufacturer (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1987)
J. P. Alston, The American Sumurai (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1989)
B. G. Dale and J. J. Plunkett, Managing Quality, 2nd edn (Hemel Hempstead: Philip Alan, 1994)
N. Slack, The Manufacturing Advantage (London: Mercury, 1991)
M. J. Stahl and G. M. Bounds (eds), Competing Globally through Customer Value (New York: Quorum Books, 1991); J. Constant, ‘Japanese Discoveries: Total Quality Management’, The Sunday Times, 15 May 1994, p. 13
N. Logothetis, Managing for Total Quality (Prentice-Hall, Hemel Hempstead 1992); and D. Hutchins, Achieve Total Quality (Fitzwilliam, 1992).
See Hill, Production/Operations Management, pp. 263–6, for a more detailed discussion on the types of corporate inventory and their control.
Ibid, pp. 261–2, for further details on this point.
A Pareto analysis orders the data from highest down to lowest. The list provided then helps to show the 80/20 relationship that exists between the data being reviewed.
This section is based on W. L. Berry and T. J. Hill, ‘Linking Systems to Strategy’, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 12, no. 10 (1992), pp. 3–15.
R. G. Schroder, ‘Material Requirements Planning: A Study of Implementation and Practice’, American Production and Inventory Control Society, Falls Church, Va., 1981.
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© 1995 Terry Hill
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Hill, T. (1995). Manufacturing infrastructure development. In: Manufacturing Strategy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-13724-4_10
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