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The purpose of this paper is to present the results on a model for manufacturing under the constraints and conditions of mass customization environment.

The proposed model is based on manufacturing features and entails the concept of modular design. That is, manufacturing features are identified and analyzed in a way that enables the generation of what is called “manufacturing core”. Manufacturing cores are semi‐finished products that have certain manufacturing features. The core can be used to manufacture a range of products after conducting certain manufacturing processes. Manufacturing cores are generated through two phases of optimization. The first phase is known as product's manufacturing features analysis which includes starting features identification. The second phase is known as manufacturing cores formation that ends with generation of manufacturing cores.

The methodology is implemented on real products (flanges) as a case study. The proposed model for mass customization is compared at make‐to‐stock and make‐to‐order policies in terms of a burden which includes the time and the cost that are required to fulfil a production order. Applying the proposed model of mass customization entails the minimum total burden required.

When the number of generic and variant features increases, an automated feature‐recognition module or sub‐system is required to facilitate the extraction of manufacturing features.

The proposed methodology is used for design of customized product through the application of integrated design for modularity and mass customization approach for production.

The proposed methodology entails development of semi‐finished products based on manufacturing features that can be used for design and manufacturing of a range of products.

Presents a new taxonomy for the non make‐to‐stock sector to enable a like‐with‐like comparison, arguing that existing taxonomies within the literature are inadequate for strategic research purposes. Presents empirical evidence which has been collected from 22 companies in three European countries – the UK, Denmark and The Netherlands. The data support the structure of the proposed new taxonomy and provide insights into competitive advantage and customisation issues in the non make‐to‐stock sector. Finally, two new labels for this sector of industry are proposed. “Versatile manufacturing company” is used to describe those manufacturers which are involved in a competitive bidding situation for every order which they receive, customisation by individual order. In contrast, the “Repeat business customiser” may only be in this position for the first of a series of similar orders from a particular customer, customisation by contract.

Whilst much of the e‐business evolution has been referred to as an additional and complementary marketing channel, there has been little concern about the impact on manufacturing. However, since a manufacturing strategy should be closely linked to the marketing strategy, developments in marketing are likely to impact manufacturing. In this paper, we explore the ways in which e‐business is impacting the manufacturing strategy in manufacturing firms. We study seven Swedish manufacturing firms and investigate the relationship between e‐business and manufacturing strategy. The findings indicate that e‐business mainly affects two decision categories – vertical integration, and manufacturing planning and control systems – through new ways to communicate and exchange information between buyers and sellers at both business ends. Improvements in these decision categories lead to potential gains in delivery speed and reliability, but only for make‐to‐order companies, whereas the impact on quality, price and flexibility is more or less negligible. Make‐to‐stock firms report only limited impact on manufacturing.

This paper relates to make‐to‐order (MTO) manufacturing environment. Initially, the various issues of concern and problems encountered in relation to typical MTO systems are presented to emphasize why agility is required in such systems. The need to have better performance measures is discussed. How some of the problems related to typical MTO systems were dealt with in the past is discussed, by highlighting the salient features of some selected contributions made towards enhancing agility in MTO systems. An outline of the system presently being developed by the author for concurrent and integrated management of MTO manufacturing organisations, which is conceived mainly as an agile management system for MTO environment, is also presented.

Small manufacturing companies make up the base industrial backbone of many countries including the USA. Even though CIM is generally believed to help manufacturers to compete globally, small companies are not able to adopt the technology owing to CIM′s substantial investments and its associated high risk. An alternative CIM approach is urgently needed. Proposes a shared CIM system for various types of production environments including make‐to‐stock (MTS), assembled‐to‐order (ATO), make‐to‐order (MTO), and engineered‐to‐order (ETO). Analysis based on production logic was performed in order to develop a series of guidelines for the successful application of shared CIM systems in the above production companies. It was found that the shared facility capacity allocation was the most important activity in the production‐planning process, the degree of co‐operation being highest in an ETO environment. The key success in the operation of the system will depend on the co‐operation of production planning in MTS and ATO environments, co‐operation of production control in an MTO environment, and co‐operation in engineering‐design and production control in an ETO environment.

Make‐to‐order (MTO) companies manufacture goods to customer specification. They produce a large number of different items, each unique because of the particular requirements of each customer. These companies do not commence production of any item until they have a firm order and have agreed a price and delivery date with the customer. Their characteristics and manufacturing management problems contrast sharply with those of Make‐to‐stock (MTS) companies, which mass produce a small variety of similar items. As most of the research to date has been aimed at the latter type of company, the need to develop manufacturing management systems specifically for the MTO sector is evident. A thorough review of the literature carried out at Lancaster illustrated that even modern manufacturing management systems such as Optimised Production Technology (OPT) and Just‐in‐Time (JIT) have failed to address the specific problems of this sector of manufacturing.

This paper aims to develop and test a model of buyer–supplier relational investment that links supply chain integration (SCI) to supplier flexibility performance (SFLEX) advantages in different manufacturing environments. Relational stability (RS) and information quality (IQL) are viewed as key indicators of intermediating commitment investments in supplier relationships to help support supplier accommodations for special requests for order flexibility. The model is applied to investigate the relative importance of manufacturer relational investments with suppliers in both make-to-stock (MTS) and make-to-order (MTO) production environments.

A survey of 206 US manufacturing firms was used to test the proposed research model using structural equation modeling and multiple-group analysis techniques.

Social exchange investments in relationship stability and information quality are found to fully mediate the positive performance relationship between supply chain integration and supplier flexibility performance for manufacturers. However, the relative importance of each form of investment in enhancing supplier flexibility performance varies based on the buyer’s (manufacturer’s) order fulfillment environment (make-to-stock versus make-to-order).

The proposed model may assist manufacturers make more informed relational exchange investments and supply chain configuration decisions that most conducive to enhancing supplier flexibility performance for different production environments.

The world of manufacturing has recently undergone many major changes leading to guidelines on what is “best practice” or world class manufacturing (WCM) in terms of both methods of operation and of performance. These guidelines are based on the companies that have been most successful, mainly the mass production industry, that has been transformed into the mass customisation sector. This paper argues that such guidelines cannot be entirely appropriate to other industry sectors, in particular to the traditional “make‐to‐order” (MTO) sector. The highly variable customer demand in this sector often means that it is strategically desirable to retain a job shop layout for at least part of the business, rather than converting the business to a series of focused cells. This paper seeks to propose a set of alternative guidelines on how MTO companies that choose to retain a job shop layout should attempt to attain WCM status. To justify the proposals, it presents some case study evidence giving two examples of companies that have remained job shops and explaining how one of them has nonetheless made substantial improvements in performance and practice.

Draws on the convergence in enterprise and manufacturing strategies apparent in the established theories and models. Develops this form through enterprise‐wide competitive dimensions into a customizable business environment and manufacturing technology/programme‐specific support framework. This generic framework links the competitive dimensions, the manufacturing‐enterprise, business‐process chains and the manufacturing typology; each is selectable and customizable for a specific manufacturing business operation. Describes the result which is a method of decomposing business goals into aggregate business‐specific, manufacturing‐performance indicators. These can be linked to measures of manufacturing performance and directly related to a manufacturing technology or a manufacturing programme.

This study is an exploratory study aiming to explore whether different groups of manufacturing firms with similar business characteristics and enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation approaches would experience different business outcomes from ERP implementation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Cluster analysis with data collected from 256 Korean manufacturing firms was employed to identify groups of manufacturing companies having similar business characteristics and adopting similar ERP implementation approaches. Then, the differences in business outcomes from implementing ERP systems among these groups of companies were examined.

Company size and production approaches are useful variables for grouping manufacturing firms into clusters of companies with similar characteristics. Additionally, large manufacturing firms with make-to-order production approach have significantly higher perceived benefits from implementing ERP systems regarding external coordination and competitive impact than other firms do.

This study was conducted in only one industry of one country and used the data collected by self-reporting instrument. Thus, further studies conducted in other industries and/or other countries and using more objective measures would allow more generalizability of the findings of this study. It would also be interesting to investigate the effects of the logistics practices adopted by small manufacturing firms even though these practices may be more suitable for large manufacturing firms.

This study contributes to the literatures on benefits obtained from implementing ERP systems as none of the previous studies has focused on the relationship among business characteristics, ERP implementation approaches, and business outcomes from ERP implementation.