Search results

The most successful companies want to remain successful and are continuously trying to improve their manufacturing operations. How and why these changes are decided, upon and driven through to implementation is of interest to all companies in any particular manufacturing sector. The research described in this paper looks at the drivers of change in UK clothing manufacturing companies. Clothing manufacturers face competitive pressures just as in other industries, but the sector has sonic particular characteristics. In the UK clothing industry, retailers rather than manufacturers dominate the list of key players. This concentration of retail buying power is coupled with intense competition in the home market from overseas and a highly negative balance of trade. The factors investigated as potential drivers of change included:

The purpose of this paper is to look into production competence theory by proposing and validating a multidimensional construct, and offering additional empirical evidence regarding the contribution of production competence to business performance.

Production competence is defined as a second‐order factor/construct in terms of five underlying dimensions: cost, flexibility, quality, delivery and environmental protection competence. Different scales are used to measure the construct, validated by a multi‐step process. Data from 274 manufacturing firms and structural equation modelling as the main technique are used for the analysis.

The paper suggests that manufacturing capabilities and their alignment with the competitive priorities pursued must be considered to explain the contribution of manufacturing to business performance. The provided evidence suggests that the manufacturing function significantly contributes to business performance, and enables us to conclude that production competence is a determinant of business performance.

Firms should focus on the development of manufacturing capabilities that are key for the market (and consistent with the business strategy). To achieve this, the production function should be integrated into the strategic planning process of the overall business strategy.

Most research works to date deal with production competence as a one‐dimensional construct and reduce its measurement to a single index, fussing variables of different types. This paper provides a valid multidimensional operationalisation of production competence, considering environmental protection as a fifth manufacturing objective. It also offers additional empirical evidence regarding the positive link between production competence and business performance.

Concern over global environmental pollution has resulted in a raft of new legislation, a major impact of which has been fundamental re‐evaluation of processing technologies used within the electronics manufacturing industry. Although compliance remains a key driver for change, other factors (e.g., market, social, new business opportunities) are also providing significant pressures. Assessments of how to control pollution have led to a much deeper appreciation of how to manage this dramatic impact on the industry. In the short‐term, the key is dealing with emissions from current premises and processes. But in the longer‐term, improvements are only possible by designing products to minimise the whole‐life environmental impact (e.g., avoiding hazardous materials, minimising waste, designing for re‐use and recycling). Crucial to the success of both short‐term and long‐term activities are the motivation and co‐operation of the workforce, together with the commitment and support of management. This paper examines some of the pressures on the industry, highlights several of the resultant technical and management challenges, and briefly outlines how one company is successfully addressing these challenges.

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

To provide an overview of research published in the management accounting literature on methods for cost management in new product development, such as a target costing, life cycle costing, component commonality, and modular design.

The structured literature search covered papers about 15 different cost management methods published in 40 journals in the period 1990–2013.

The search yielded a sample of 113 different papers. Many contained information about more than one method, and this yielded 149 references to specific methods. The number of references varied strongly per cost management method and per journal. Target costing has received by far the most attention in the publications in our sample; modular design, component commonality, and life cycle costing were ranked second and joint third. Most references were published in Management Science; Management Accounting Research; and Accounting, Organizations and Society. The results were strongly influenced by Management Science and Decision Science, because cost management methods with an engineering background were published above average in these two journals (design for manufacturing, component commonality, modular design, and product platforms) while other topics were published below average in these two journals.

The scope of this review is accounting research. Future work could review the research on cost management methods in new product development published outside accounting.

The paper centers on methods for cost management, which complements reviews that focused on theoretical constructs of management accounting information and its use.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Though environmental management accounting (EMA) is a globally recognized accounting practice, its application and development within several developing economies remain stunted. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the extent to which EMA practices have been implemented by local manufacturing companies in Nairobi, Kenya.

We measure the degree to which EMA methods have been adopted by manufacturing entities and hypothesize that firm size, financial performance, and regulation are positively associated to the extent to which EMA techniques are applied by Kenyan corporations. The chapter employs a mixed methods research approach and combines the use of surveys with semi-structured interviews to gain insights into drivers of EMA and the extent to which these methods are applied locally.

We find environmental regulation and financial performance are positively associated with the level of EMA practices applied by manufacturing entities.

The findings illustrate the complexities of applying EMA practices within an emerging context and provide evidence that EMA practices are still predominantly used by entities to meet local regulatory requirements. The qualitative findings indicate there could be some companies who engage with EMA at a more sophisticated level.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze lean strategic practices being implemented in manufacturing facilities throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia and identify the difficulty in implementing those lean practices.

A skip logic questionnaire was developed into multiple sections for analysis; demographics of respondents, identification of the knowledge and practice of lean methods, interpretation of lean application, strategic direction of lean methods, measurements of expertise, and difficulties for practicing lean. The questionnaire was sent to 327 manufacturing facilities where 51 usable responses were collected for the study.

Lean manufacturing is a widely recognized and practiced business philosophy as a significant percentage of manufacturers have implemented some variation of practice. However, the extent of knowledge does not mirror awareness. The application of lean manufacturing practices is not readily appropriate for every company, but adopting the concept of customer-focussed waste reduction to maximize value can be universally applied as waste reduction was the most prominent practice pursued. Lean practitioners found that poka-yoke and installing new process equipment have the highest degree of benefits from implementation while 5S and eliminating waste were the least difficult practices to implement. In general, the management personnel of the companies have an influential effect on lean manufacturing pursuance. This is illustrated by the fact of high agreement between facilities that resistance to change from employees is the most prominent difficulty for implementation followed by limited technical knowledge of lean manufacturing at operational and conceptual levels.

The research findings are from a subset of manufacturing companies in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and may not represent all of the companies on a national level. The results must be interpreted in the context of the data acquisition approach due to the extent of the sample size involved, the procedure for how data were collected, and assuming that each lean strategic practice has the same weight to calculate the facility lean index.

The results provide insight about the effect of facility size and years of lean practicing for various lean strategic practices. The most beneficial and least difficult lean strategies, their implementation level, and the real challenges for implementing lean were also identified to help both lean practitioner and non-practitioner for the lean journey.

The research investigates current lean strategic practices pursued by manufacturers throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia and identifies obstacles to implementation of lean practices. Lean manufacturing is widely sought after as a continuous improvement program, but success is divided. This study characterizes lean manufacturing comprehension while identifying knowledge areas of strengths and deficiencies. There lacks an established structure for lean practices to pursue. Therefore, this study provides manufacturers a measure for comparing their position for refined decision making.

This study aims to examine the relationship between top‐performing US furniture manufacturers and industry's best manufacturing practices.

In the past studies, best manufacturing practices were mostly determined using qualitative methods. In this paper, a quantitative evaluating method to determine best manufacturing practices was designed by taking into consideration qualitative criterions. A sample of 122 manufacturing practices was observed in six US furniture companies, two of them considered world‐class performers and the other four considered average. A logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between best manufacturing practices and top‐performing companies.

Statistical analyses showed a positive relationship between top‐performing companies and use of best manufacturing practices by these companies. A database of best manufacturing practices was created and shared with the participant companies.

One limitation of this study is that the causal relationship between performance and best practices was not considered. Future studies could employ statistical methods such as structural equation model to better understand this causality. Other methods could possibly be developed to audit and classify manufacturing practices.

It is believed that the database of best manufacturing practices will help average or below‐average performing companies to identify and adopt best manufacturing practices. It will also help top‐performing companies in the cycle of continuous improvement.

This paper examines accounting harmonisation and determinants explaining accounting measurement policy choice decisions by Asia‐Pacific listed manufacturing companies. Using Thomas' (1991) theoretical framework, four contingent variables (country of reporting, company size, profitability and debt leverage) are examined as possible determinants of firms' accounting choices concerning non‐current asset valuation measurement base, goodwill and depreciation. 130 listed manufacturing companies' annual reports were examined from Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. This study involves two phases. The first phase evaluates accounting harmonisation measurement indices in comparison with the extant literature. An important innovation is the operationalisation of Archer et. al. (1995) between‐country and within‐country C indices. Computed comparability indices indicated variations in the level of harmony across the five countries for all three accounting measurement practices. The second phase employed logistic regression to examine possible determinants of accounting policy choice decisions. Such a combined research approach should lead to a better understanding of de facto accounting harmonisation and practices.