The German manufacturing industry has to withstand an increasing global competition on product quality and production costs. As labor costs are high, several industries have suffered severely under the relocation of production facilities towards aspiring countries, which have managed to close the productivity and quality gap substantially. Established manufacturing companies have recognized tha...

Manufacturing companies are facing three challenges: low cost production of product, high quality standard and rapid responsiveness to customer requirements. These three goals are equally important for the manufacturing companies who want to be competitive in the global economy. Reconfigurable machining system facilitate the demand for Mass Customization Manufacturing, (MCM). The reconfigurable...

The wave of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) is breaking on manufacturing companies. In manufacturing, one of the buzzwords of the moment is "Smart production". Smart production involves manufacturing equipment with many sensors that can generate and transmit large amounts of data. Data and information from manufacturing operations are however not used by most manufacturing compa...

Within the past decades, developments in manufacturing have been turbulent and radical. For the manufacturing and management sciences, revolutionary changes took place. Based on Kuhn’s findings on the nature of scientific revolutions, the paper consolidates projections for future developments in manufacturing by exploiting interactions of the most important drivers of these developments. Major ...

Traditional manufacturing is moving from Europe to Asia. This new “China effect” influences the manufacturing strategies of many different business areas. Manufacturing strategies have been changing from focused in 1970’s to multi-focused in the 2000s. Nowadays, the companies must excel simultaneously in quality, time, and costs, as well as in flexibility. Multifocused strategies have not been ...

Purpose: Presents lean outsourcing model and application on a small UK-based manufacturing company that has been outsourcing part of its activities. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed approach comprised two parts. The former is the outsourcing activities within small and medium sized manufacturing companies. The later is the use of lean philosophy for continuous improvement of outsourcin...

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Keith Goffin graduated from Durham University in 1977 with a first class honours degree in Physics and subsequently obtained a masters in Medical Physics from Aberdeen University. In 1980 he joined the Medical Products Group of Hewlett-Packard (HP) in Germany as an engineer working on new product development. Later, he held various management roles including Product Marketing...

This paper presents the development of a process for manufacturing companies to facilitate environmental thinking for the integration of environmental concerns into their business operations. The process takes its point of departure in Corporate Social Responsibility while maintaining focus on obtaining direct benefits for the business. By understanding the end-uses’ perception, drivers, limita...

Japan's manufacturing sector has lost its former prosperity and now faces a crisis, prompting heated debate over the path that electronics makers and other manufacturers should take in the future. In the past, Japanese companies focused their business activities in markets of the developed world, relying on the twin weapons of advanced technology and high quality, and reaping considerable rewar...

complicacy, variety and ever-increasing changes, assumed as outstandingly evident organizational environment features, impose a situation where inconsiderate attitude or carelessness could end in loss of competitiveness or even survival among rivals. today, organizations have come to the point that nothing, but knowledge and innovation could make them desirably successful in a competitive world...