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MANUFACTURING STRATEGY ON THE “S” CURVE
Author(s) -
Skinner Wickham
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
production and operations management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.279
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1937-5956
pISSN - 1059-1478
DOI - 10.1111/j.1937-5956.1996.tb00381.x
Subject(s) - popularity , flourishing , competition (biology) , strategic management , function (biology) , task (project management) , production (economics) , business , marketing , key (lock) , competitive advantage , industrial organization , computer science , economics , operations management , process management , management , microeconomics , psychology , ecology , computer security , evolutionary biology , psychotherapist , biology , social psychology
The concept and techniques of “manufacturing strategy” offer managers the opportunity to use their production function as a strategic weapon in competition, an apparently attractive objective. Yet after about 25 years, the use of manufacturing in corporate strategy (MCS) as a management practice is not widespread. In contrast, however, in academic literature it appears to be flourishing and rapidly growing in popularity. This paper seeks to answer this apparent paradox, beginning with the history of MCS as it was developed as a theory of design to enable a manufacturing system to be focused on a key competitive task. Common criticisms of MCS, such as “tradeoffs,” “focus” and “undynamic,” are examined and refuted as valid reasons for its only modest usage. Instead, three “new” problems in the MCS concept and its techniques are suggested as genuine needs for the completion of the theory and for its becoming more universally understood and used by industrial managers.