Originally published as International Journal of Operations & Production Management Volume 25 Number 2, 2005
ISBN: 1 84544 089 7
Guest edited by: Harry Boer, Aalborg University & Anders Drejer, Arhus School of Business, Denmark.
This Special Issue is based on papers presented at the conference on “Managing Innovative Manufacturing”. Organized by the Center for Industrial Production, the conference took place on 22-23 September 2003 at Aalborg University, Denmark.
Why a conference on managing innovative manufacturing? The main ones, from a Western perspective, are globalisation, hypercompetition and an increasingly important role of what are currently low cost countries. The response: become much more innovative – the question: how? At the MiM conference many excellent papers addressed this and related questions and six of them are included in this journal.
Contents:
Globalisation and manufacturing strategy in the TCF industry
The textiles, clothing, and footwear (TCF) industry has struggled in Australia since the government commenced dismantling tariffs. By sourcing from Asia, middlemen undercut established suppliers, and retail chains set benchmark low prices with their imported “house” labels. The policy-makers predicted that local producers would become more efficient, and export to make up for lost sales, but the media paints a picture of rising imports, retrenchments, and factory closures.
Understanding new-to-market product development in SMEs
This study aims to understand how small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can build a dynamic capability for new-to-market product development.
Best manufacturing practices: What do the best-performing companies do?
Research on best practices suffers from some fundamental problems. The problem addressed in this article is that authors tend to postulate, rather than show, the practices they address to be best – whether these practices do indeed produce best performance is often not investigated.
Key success factors when implementing strategic manufacturing initiatives
The paper presents new thinking by bringing project management into the operations strategy implementation literature as an important mediating factor for success. In this context the factors that are required for successful implementation are identified.
Strategic positioning: an integrated decision process for manufacturers
This paper describes research that has sought to create a formal and rational process that guides manufacturers through the strategic positioning decision. The methodology is based on a series of case studies to develop and test the decision process.
The interactive firm – towards a new paradigm: A framework for the strategic positioning of the industrial company of the future)
This article discusses the characteristics of the future industrial company, the so-called interactive firm, and the challenges awaiting it down the road. To this end, a framework for the strategic positioning of tomorrow's industrial company is proposed.
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