Benchmarking Global Manufacturing

Compares the results of surveys of over 1000 manufacturing enterprises conducted in the framework of a ten year Global Manufacturing Futures Project which began in 1981 at Boston University. Provides information on the performance, strategies, operations and ways of thinking of major companies, intended as a model for managers to apply in their own organizations. Includes statistical data by country.

Aimed at introducing the subject of benchmarking to the process industries, this book is based on practical experience of over 2000 process plants. It provides guidance on how to benchmark, where to find the benchmarks, how to quantify the gaps intended and suggests the impact of improving manufacturing in the process industries. This book provides the framework, measures and industry world-class targets to allow organizations to maximise its potential.

Using site-specific optimization approaches in international manufacturing networks is increasingly proving insufficient. To solve this problem, several holistic and integrated alternatives have been developed to reflect a global perspective. This book presents advances in the St. Gallen Global Manufacturing Network Model and its application in numerous industry-, benchmarking- and research projects. The contents combine data-driven solutions with qualitative management frameworks for the strategic optimization of international manufacturing networks. In the first part, the book addresses the foundation of manufacturing network management and further describes the St. Gallen Operational Excellence approaches to manage plant performance. On this basis, the authors show how plant- and network-level performance can be enhanced via key improvement domains (e.g., strategy, configuration, coordination, performance management, digitalization). In turn, the second part demonstrates the application of the constructs in manufacturing companies from various industries. By combining research and practice, the book offers unique perspectives on the management of global production striving toward higher performance on manufacturing site and network level.

Presents 27 real-life case studies of successful benchmarking investigations from around the world. Using examples from the manufacturing, service, nonprofit, government and education sectors, this book demonstrates that learning from others, is one of the most efficient ways to improve performance.

Success in global markets means faster time to market, sharper response to customer needs, and better value. To be a world-class competitor, you must do this while expending fewer product development resources per project and while increasing the efficiency with which those resources are deployed. In this book, two international experts show you how the "champions" manage robust product development operations. Recounting the key findings of five years of researching, benchmarking, and working with scores of the world's most competitive companies, they crystallize the workings of a new system of managing fast product development in the '90s. The companies benchmarked were chosen because of their fast cycle times, rapid market share gains, high percentage of sales from products introduced within the last three years, and favorable industry image. You will closely explore the practices by which such winners as NEC, Hewlett-Packard, Toyota, and Boeing have achieved success - and you will learn how to apply their methods, tools, and techniques to your own improvement efforts. Significantly, rather than offering a single process for success, World-Class New Product Development gives you a cross-section of proven, repeatable methodologies. The authors synthesize their findings into 12 concepts that can revolutionize the way you conceive and develop products.

Over the last twenty years, there has been an increasing number of factors that have placed the manufacturing strategies of companies and countries in a global context. This book reviews and addresses the global manufacturing strategy area through research in the four major economic areas of the world: Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. International Manufacturing Strategies: Context, Content and Change is the result of a single major research project undertaken in twenty countries, focusing on the manufacturing strategies and practices in each, and uses research data to focus on factors specific to industrial countries or regions and those which are common across the group of countries or the entire sample The core of this book is a set of chapters reviewing individual countries. Each country is reviewed in a format with an overall common approach: the socio-economic background; the distinctive results for that country from the research and the link between the two. Most will be illustrated by a small case study of a company. Following this is an integrating review of the findings from various countries, the different trajectories followed, and the impact on external variables and the socioeconomic context on those. The final part of the book is devoted to new ideas and developments in functional areas and in manufacturing strategy that have been developed from the analysis conducted during the research.

The preceding process of globalization and the continuously rising competitive pressure on manufacturing companies in more developed economies unveiled the limits of classical site-focused optimization approaches. The focus of network optimization shifts ever more towards an integrative view of manufacturing networks, striving for a harmonization of the strategy-, configuration- and coordination levels. This book presents such an integrative approach to the strategic management of manufacturing networks. Besides strategic network requirements, this book discusses the derivation of an optimal global footprint and the optimization of network coordination activities. Special attention is paid to the site roles concept, especially to the concept of 'lead factory'. A large number of up-to-date cases from the producing industry enrich the book and provide the reader with vivid examples for the application of the presented concepts. Hence, this book is a must-read for both practitioners and academic researchers.