Empirical Studies in Discrete Parts Manufacturing Management


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Abstract

Empirical Studies in Discrete Parts Manufacturing Management

 

Manufacturing firms are bound by the conditions of their environment. They have to fulfil the demands of various stakeholders, such as customers, suppliers, government, financiers, and employees) that provide them the resources to perform their operations. The effectiveness of a manufacturing firm depends on the fit between the manufacturing system and the level of uncertainty in its environment. There must be consistency between numerous manufacturing dimensions, such as operations strategy, process choice, level of decentralization, production planning and control strategies, concepts, and tools, and the characteristics of the dominant Product/Market/Technology (PMT) combinations of the manufacturing firm. This book focuses on empirical studies that address the impact of PMT-uncertainty on various operations management issues in Dutch discrete parts manufacturing firms. It includes an in-depth exploratory longitudinal case study at Urenco Aerospace, a second-tier supplier in the aerospace industry, and two independent surveys (i.e., questionnaire-based research) among Dutch discrete parts manufacturers.

 

The central research question of this book is, what is the impact of PMT-uncertainty on important discrete parts manufacturing management issues, such as the strategic focus on competitive priorities, the dominant type of manufacturing layout, the decentrality of the locus of production planning and control, the use of various production planning and control tools, and line management's attention for social issues like individual competence management?

In addition, we extensively focus on organizational and innovation-related characteristics that affect the adoption of an Advanced Planning and Scheduling system within the discrete parts manufacturing industry.