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The purpose of this paper is to propose a “Fit” manufacturing paradigm for industry so that manufacturing companies can become economically sustainable and can operate effectively in a global competitive market. The proposed Fit paradigm is aimed at providing a new manufacturing management perspective to both academics and industrialists.

The Fit paradigm is developed and proposed as a new manufacturing management strategy towards creating economically sustainable manufacturing organisations. Fit is a theoretical development using the principles of existing manufacturing paradigms along with new and innovative management concepts to create a sustainable approach to manufacturing.

Manufacturing strategies such as lean and agility allow companies to deliver bottom‐line savings in production terms although their effectiveness depends upon the volume and demand profile of their products. The trend towards mass customisation requires companies to provide personalised products and services at mass production prices. This now places a further burden on companies and therefore a holistic manufacturing framework must be developed in order to ensure that the factory of the future is able to meet this new demand. This paper proposes a fit manufacturing paradigm which integrates the manufacturing efficiencies achieved through lean and agility with the need to break into new markets through effective marketing and product innovation strategies to achieve long term economic sustainability. The small scale application of the approach in a case company shows that the initial results to be positive when measured against a fit index which is developed within this paper.

The development of a fit paradigm aimed at tackling directly the issues of economic sustainability is proposed and is considered by the authors as one of a kind. Fit will also provide a framework for the implementation of sustainable manufacturing operations within organisations.

The paper sets out to test relationships between performance improvements and the three classical manufacturing strategy paradigms of fit, best practices, and capabilities defined by Voss.

Regression analyses are carried out on an international sample of 697 manufacturers of fabricated metal products, machinery, and equipment.

The results indicate that capability learning and best practices are positively related to performance improvements in quality, flexibility, and dependability, whereas internal fit appears to be negatively related to flexibility improvements.

The study reinforces the need for research to explore the nature and role of the three paradigms jointly rather than in isolation. In particular, more research is needed to assess the merits of maintaining fit between operations structure and processes.

Improving performance in areas such as quality, flexibility, and delivery can be achieved through building capabilities and/or adopting best practices, but not apparently by maintaining internal fit between operations structure and processes.

The study validates two of the three classical paradigms of manufacturing strategy and makes the case for research to further specify and test the merits of maintaining internal fit between operations structure and processes.

The purpose of this paper is to propose that the effectiveness of organizational design-manufacturing integration (ODMI) practices is contingent upon the degree of complexity of the manufacturing environment. The paper submits that the level of use of ODMI ought to match the level of complexity of the manufacturing environment. The paper puts forward the hypothesis that when a misfit occurs between ODMI and complexity (high use of ODMI practices in low complexity environments or low use of ODMI practices in high complexity environments) manufacturing operational performance declines.

The paper tests the hypothesis based on a survey database of 725 manufacturers from 21 countries. The measurement model was assessed with confirmatory factor analysis and the hypothesis was tested with linear regression.

A misfit between the level of ODMI use (job rotation and co-location) and manufacturing complexity (product and process complexity) has a negative effect on manufacturing operational performance dimensions of quality, delivery and flexibility. Post hoc analyses also suggest that firms that operate in different environments in what concerns the rate of change in process technologies suffer differentiated negative impacts of ODMI-complexity misfit.

Future studies could extend this research to other dimensions of design-manufacturing integration, such as technological practices.

Manufacturers with high levels of complexity should invest strongly in ODMI practices. However, manufacturers with low levels of complexity should invest in these practices with caution since the expected payoffs may not outweigh the effort.

The study assesses fit as a simultaneous set of contingency factors, applying profile-deviation analysis to ODMI and operational performance relationships. By focusing on plant-level manufacturing complexity, this study complements existing studies of product development complexity which tend to focus on project-level complexity.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive model for fitness evaluation and to determine fitness index using fuzzy methods.

The conceptual model for fitness evaluation was developed by literature review. The case study was conducted in an Indian pump manufacturing company. The assessment of fitness index was done using multi-grade fuzzy and fuzzy logic approaches. The fitness index was computed. The obstacles were identified and analysed for improvements.

The fitness index was found to be 6.8724 which revealed that the organization was fit. Euclidean distance method was used to match fitness index with fitness level. The weaker attributes were identified and proposals were derived for improvements.

The developed model was test implemented in a single manufacturing organization. The study could be extended for other organizations in future.

The case study was conducted in an Indian pump manufacturing organization. The insights derived from the study have practical propensity.

The model for fitness evaluation and assessment of fitness index were original and novel contributions of the authors.

Using the matching/difference perspective, the purpose of this paper is to examine the interaction fit between a set of managerial practices from manufacturing strategy (MS) and another set from technology management (TM) and the link of this fit to operational performance.

The paper applies multiple statistical methods to a database of an international sample of plants in the auto supplier sector to explore (deviation score analysis/multiple linear regression) and confirm (correlation and variance subgroup analysis) whether a matching model presents organisational disequilibrium, where states of fit are related to effectively higher performance than states of misfit.

Results from regression show that there were no states of misfit between the levels of both manufacturing practice sets/areas. This means that there are no significant differences in performance that may be tested for matching interaction. However, subgroup analysis provides greater detail on why there might not be any misfits (i.e. state of fit), by illustrating that when grouping by plant type (high/world class performer, HP, and standard performer, SP), the slight lack of significant difference in the correlation between MS and TM was in favour of HP. The implementation levels of MS‐TM found were not significantly different, showing for HP slightly higher levels for both practices (+&+) than for SP, with slightly lower values in both cases (− & −). Therefore, it seems that both groups might perform equally well, due not to interaction but to the presence of a state of MS‐TM fit alone. A state of fit such as this, known as selection or congruency, would be the reason for there being no significant matching interaction originally.

Most of the interaction fit bibliography is from the accounting perspective. Therefore, the impact of the matching interaction fit between MS and TM (as well as its impact on performance) has not been well documented theoretically, and much less, empirically, in production and operations management.

Increased requirements for competitiveness, innovation, quality, flexibility and information processing capability has led a number of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to implement advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT). Seeks to explore this.

Using a contingency theory perspective, a survey study of 118 Canadian manufacturers was made to determine the performance outcomes of the “fit” or alignment between the critical success factors (CSFs) of operations management in SMEs and their level of proficiency in the use of AMT.

It was found that while increased CSF and AMT assimilation levels directly impact operational performance in terms of increased productivity, cost reductions, flexibility, quality, and integration, a mismatch between the two significantly reduces performance. From an information processing view of the firm, it was also found that increased uncertainty in the SMEs' environment leads to increased CSF levels but not to increased assimilation of AMT.

Common to survey studies, the nature of the sample and perceptual nature of certain measures impose care in generalizing the results of the study.

Provides information showing that enterprises must increase their ability to manage both manufacturing and information technologies.

Additive manufacturing technology, also commonly called as 3D printing technology, is entering rapidly into the aerospace world and seems to be its future. Many manufacturing processes are replaced by this technology because the ease of use, low costs and new possibilities to make complicated parts. However, there are only few solutions which present manufacturing of structurally critical parts.

Complete process of deriving loads, design of fitting geometry, numerical validation, manufacturing and strength testing was presented. The emphasis was made to show specific features of 3D technology in printed fittings for UAV.

The research confirms that the technology can be used for the application of fittings manufacturing. Attention needs to be paid, during the design process, to account for specific features of the 3D printing technology, which is described in details.

Without a doubt, additive manufacturing is useful for manufacturing complicated parts within limited time and with reduction cost. It was also shown that the manufactured parts can be used for highly loaded structures.

The paper shows how additive manufacturing technology can be used to produce significantly loaded parts of airplanes’ structure. Only few such examples were presented till now.

This study provides a systematic review of the literature within the manufacturing strategy (MS) domain focusing on the congruence aspect of different strategic functions to determine the state-of-the-art research progression and the trend of publications.

We have adopted a five-stage review methodology consisting - 1) Article Identification; 2) Inclusion/Exclusion; 3) Review of the Articles; 4) Literature Analysis; 5) Future research directions. 121 articles focusing on congruence aspects and specific to the MS domain are identified and reviewed. Bibliometric analysis comprising keyword co-occurrence using a VOSviewer© software, and citation analysis is performed. Further, content analysis is carried out to categorize articles based on the type of research methodology, type of tool/method used, and aspects considered for congruence study.

Based on the research gaps identified in the existing literature on the congruence aspect within the MS domain, this study offers future research directions. Majorly, the work found is an empirical survey. Literature scants to develop a framework that helps to quantify the congruence between two strategic functions.

This study facilitates researchers and practitioners to understand the congruence between different strategic aspects studied in the literature and the level of fit between them. Further, the identified research directions can encourage researchers and practitioners to conceive novel approaches to conduct future works on congruence theme.

The unicity of the current review lies in its theme, i.e. congruence aspect within MS. To the best of author's knowledge, no comparable study is observed to review the congruence aspect in any other domain.

Prior research into the manufacturing function's contribution to business performance demonstrates two seemingly incompatible approaches: strategic alignment or the identification of best practices. In the former, practices are useful only if they are consistent with the strategy to be implemented; in the latter, better performance derives from certain practices, regardless of the strategic context. The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework to integrate these approaches according to two types of manufacturing alignment, external and internal, such that organizational performance depends on their interaction.

The framework was tested over the information provided on a questionnaire by 148 Spanish companies in three industrial sectors: industrial and commercial machinery, electronic and other electrical equipment, and transportation equipment.

The level of internal alignment depends on the manufacturing practices; some facilitate alignment under any competitive circumstances, whereas others only do so for specific competitive priorities.

This study reinforces the idea that alignment between manufacturing capabilities and business strategy is fundamental, but it also recognizes some best practices that facilitate alignment in any circumstances. Therefore, it demonstrates that both, the approach based on strategic alignment and that based on the existence of best practices, can be combined to fully explain the potential of the manufacturing function.

This research aims to develop an effective and efficient algorithm for solving the curve fitting problem arising in automated manufacturing systems.

This paper takes curve fitting as an optimization problem of a set of data points. Expressing the data as a function will be very effective to the data analysis and application. This paper will develop the stochastic optimization method to apply to curve fitting. The proposed method is a combination optimization method based on pattern search (PS) and simulated annealing algorithm (SA).

The proposed method is used to solve a nonlinear optimization problem and then to implement it to solve three circular arc‐fitting problems of curve fitting. Based on the analysis performed in the experimental study, the proposed algorithm has been found to be suitable for curve fitting.

Curve fitting is one of the basic form errors encountered in circular features. The proposed algorithm is tested and implemented by using nonlinear problem and circular data to determine the circular parameters.

The developed machine vision‐based approach can be an online tool for measurement of circular components in automated manufacturing systems.