Fit Manufacturing: A Strategy for Achieving Economic Sustainability
Authors: D. T. Pham, O. Adebayo-Williams, Z. Ebrahim, R. Barton, A.J. Thomas
Abstract
Achieving economic sustainability is a major focus for managers in manufacturing firms. The implementation of lean and agile initiatives has not really facilitated an organisation’s long-term economic sustainability. The industrial landscape is littered with the carcasses of manufacturing companies who have tried to improve their productivity, competitiveness and hence economic sustainability using these initiatives. This failure calls for a shift in focus from achieving long-term competitive advantage through operational cost reduction, product flexibility and responsiveness to a “total†manufacturing initiative that is pro-active to market changes and has the ability to integrate the manufacturing efficiencies achieved through lean and agile with timeless manufacturing fundamentals required for economic sustainability. Fit manufacturing offers this advantage and provides a powerful approach for practitioners to achieve economic sustainability with limited disruption to their current manufacturing initiative.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Fit Manufacturing- A concept for achieving economic sustainability [Presentation].wmv | 7.68 MB |
Hi Williams,
In your paper, you did mention about renewal strategy as one of the core components of fit manufacturing. I was wondering whether the strategy is going to be implemented in certain department in the organisation or the whole?
renewal strategy is a continuous process in experimenting with new ideas and problem solving. Is there any peformance measurement or metrics that might trigger the organisation to start renewing and how about the readiness of the elements/components to adapt with the new change?
On the other hand, might be you can elaborate more on the key elements or components of renewal strategy and the challenges or impacts that might be faced by the organisation by applying this strategy.
Many thanks
best regards :-),
-Amelia-
Hi Amelia,
Thank you for taking time to read my paper and for your question.
Renewal ability as a core component of fit manufacturing was identified through our literature review. The theory of evolutionary fitness helps explains this phenomenon in nature. According to the theory, self-renewal was defined as "ability of living things to continuously renew and recycle their components while maintaining the integrity of their overall structure".
It is our believe that for manufacturing firms to remain healthy and have a sustainable future, the ability to go beyond price/performance indicators of lean and agile are necessary. Fit therefore encourages organisations to embark on a process of self-revitalisation through creating new competencies and re-inventing old ones. Competency leverage leads to industrial leadership and diversification, a key criterion for continuous adaptation in a turbulent environment of unanticipated changes.
Therefore is no set framework on when organisation should embark on self-renewal since organisations experience different situations and circumstances. However, for a manufacturing firm aiming to remain healthy and strong, fit encourages merging short-term goals of lean and agile manufacturing with long-term goals of business sustainability to achieve a level of fitness necessary to its continuous survival . As the work on fit manufacturing progresses we hope to come up with some implementable algorithm or framework to guide business managers in this process.
The question regarding the challenges faced by organisations applying this strategy is quite relevant. For instance it takes an organisation 5-10 years to grow a new competency. Also there is the issue of resources availability to support such drive. As a matter of fact it is not possible to cover all these issues here.
I hope this helps.
Williams
Dear Ng,
Thank you for your question.
Warning signals are familiar phenomena in nature. For instance, on the basis of experience, the build-up of heavy cloud signifies rain so also is the blossoming of a range of plants (depending on the climate) signifies the start of spring. However, the fundamental question on how business managers recognise warning signals and opportunities in turbulent and rapidly changing market remains an engaging issue with manufacturing practitioners and researchers alike.
The idea behind AWM is still evolving, nonetheless, just like resource based view (RBV); fit manufacturing aims to encourage organisation to view themselves as a portfolio of competencies (capacity for product or service conceptualisation, manufacture, and product lifecycle management). Fit manufacturing does a bit more by placing emphasis on the need to train and make sales and marketing staff play pivotal roles in product conceptualisation since they are often the people that deal directly with consumers. This point should be appreciated if viewed against the background that in some organisations the responsibility for product conceptualisation tends to rest on a product team who has limited knowledge of the market (changing consumer taste, competitor products, price and performance expectations) but depend on their creative instincts and technical know-how.
Through the AWM emphasis is shifted to need to have a sale and marketing team that is technologically aware of the company’s capabilities and also to act as a products gatekeeper through new product conceptualisation and initiation. This is not a sufficient condition but a necessary one if the manufacturing company is to align its manufacturing operations to take advantage of the new the opportunities.
I hope this helps
Williams
Considerable agreement exists among researchers, development practitioners, and policymakers regarding the goals of sustainable agricultural intensification (SAI). They include: achieving agricultural productivity growth, household food security, and improved rural livelihoods and employment, while simultaneously mitigating environmental degradation. However, the multiplicity of these objectives, as well as the choice of approaches to achieving them and the site- and context-specificity of specific technological and institutional interventions, assures that the research and policy challenges to achieving SAI will remain considerable. This article summarizes the contributions of the articles in this Special Issue in four areas of the literature. First, labor market constraints, the labor intensity of specific agricultural technologies and practices, and labor's substitutability, or complementarity, with other inputs are shown to widely influence their viability and related input efficiencies. Second, the articles identify specific tradeoffs and synergistic relationships that arise in the attainment of these multiple goals stemming from technologies, management practices, and policies introduced under specific agroclimatic, market, and institutional conditions. Third, these papers contribute to the literature on agricultural technology adoption by furnishing additional empirical evidence on the determinants and effects of investment behavior and adoption of specific technologies and management practices. Finally, the articles in this Special Issue emphasize that there is no single policy nor technological, management, or institutional innovation that unambiguously promotes SAI. Preferred policies must be contextualized and sensitive to initial biophysical, market, and institutional conditions.
___________________
Submited by : Libros Gratis
I hope to this will initiate more interest to fit manufacturing. The idea of identify sustainable benefits and others to conceptualise the fit manufacturing model is intriguing.
I hope you could elaborate about the AWM or Advanced Warning Mechanism you stated your paper. Is it a new mechanism or if it is not, are there any references on AWM?
From what I understand, you stated that to implement AWM, marketing and sales people need to become technologically aware of a company’s capabilities and act as a products gatekeeper when out in the field.
I was wondering whether by being aware of the company's capabilities and product gatekeeper is sufficient to allow companies to identify new markets and align its manufacturing operations to take advantage of the new the opportunities.
In order to be able to identify new markets and take advantage of any new opportunity, one would have know what other companies (directly related and indirectly related) are doing or are going to do and able to capture the trend of technological evolutions. All these means the marketing and sales people has to be aware of what other companies are capable of. Perhaps you can elaborate more on that. Thank you.
Regards
Ng