Search results

Although lean popularity is rapidly growing, its implementation is far from problem-free and companies may experience difficulties in sustaining long-term success. On this premises, the purpose of this paper is to understand to what extent human factors, affected by the implementation of both hard (defined as technical and analytical tools) and soft (concerning people and relations) lean practices, play a key role in achieving long-term superior performance.

The analysis of the relationships between lean practices implementation, human factors and operational performance is carried out in a single exploratory case study. A retrospective approach is adopted to trace the changes of human and operational performance before, during and after the introduction of lean management (LM) implementation. In particular, a mixed method concurrent design merging results of a qualitative analysis with data collected from a survey is selected to provide a more realistic benefit in the exploration of the proposed research questions.

The results show a short-term direct relationship between the implementation of lean practices (hard and soft) and physical work environment and job characteristics, directly connected to operational outcome. In the long term, operational performance is influenced by employee behaviour outcome and conditioned by physical work environment and job characteristics with the mediating effect of individual characteristics.

The proposed model supports the building of a roadmap for LM implementation, taking into account the role of the human factors to achieve superior operational performance. Moreover, it helps managers to implement a monitoring system to check how social and technical components of a LM system evolve over time. Finally, it supports the definition of specific training programs, tailored for specific workers’ types.

This paper extends theory in LM, highlighting how hard and soft lean practices have to interact to enable a successful LM implementation.

The advantages of offshoring are increasingly under scrutiny, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has advanced the debate, calling for a redefinition of firms' production location strategies. While attention has primarily focused on the relocation of second-degree strategies, such as back-shoring, near-shoring and further offshoring, there are also other alternatives, including home country-based domestic product and process innovations, and the development of new business activities. The objective of the authors' paper is to identify which factors influence decision-makers when they select and implement such post-offshoring strategic alternatives.

The authors consider 11 Italian manufacturing companies that implemented these strategies and analyze triggers, drivers, enabling factors and barriers of the decision phase, as well as content, governance mode and timing of the implementation phase.

Based on the collected findings, the authors suggest a set of propositions for further research. First of all, firms can simultaneously manage multiple strategies by adopting an ambidextrous approach through which to mitigate supply chain risks. They may integrate their domestic and international production activities, but the home country remains central for innovations and production of high-end products and Industry 4.0 technologies increases the probability of investing in their home country. At the same time, lack of competence induces selective near- and back-shoring, while full back-shoring is mainly a consequence of managerial mistakes. Competence availability acts as a barrier to relocation in the home country, inducing the implementation of either an insourcing strategy or a combination of insourcing and outsourcing.

The authors' work identifies post-offshoring as a dynamic process and provides insights into the post-pandemic scenario. The conceptual framework may represent a useful tool for company managers in re-evaluating their initial offshoring strategies.

The benefits of adopting lean manufacturing for leveraging corporate sustainability have been highlighted in the literature. However, these studies have neglected the social side of sustainability compared with the attention given to the environmental aspects. Addressing this gap, this paper aims to investigate the influence of lean practices on the dimensions of employee social sustainability (ESS), which enabled the identification of the most critical practices.

This paper conducted an exploratory study in two phases: first, seeking evidence in the literature, and second, applying the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to connect ESS to lean practices based on expert opinion.

From the literature review, this paper found linkages between eight lean manufacturing practices and four dimensions of ESS. Based on evidence from the literature, the authors designed and applied an AHP model to set priorities among lean practices and social dimensions. Therefore, “health and safety” was evaluated as the most critical social dimension, and 5S was considered the most influential lean practice on ESS.

This study contributed to introducing the perspective of lean manufacturing practices as enablers of ESS. Notably, it pointed out which specific practices should be prioritized in the lean implementation process with social sustainability purposes. In addition, it identified relationships not reported in the literature, raising questions for further investigation.

This study aims to investigate the manufacturing reshoring decision-making content from an Eclectic Paradigm perspective.

Data were collected through a six-step systematic literature review on factors influencing manufacturing reshoring decision-making. The review is based on 100 peer-reviewed journal papers discussing reshoring decision-making contents published from 2009 to 2022.

In total, 80 decision factors were extracted and then categorized into resource-seeking (8%), market-seeking (11%), efficiency-seeking (41%) and strategic asset-seeking (16%) advantages. Additionally, 24% of these were identified as hybrid, which means that they were classified into multiple categories. Some decision factors were further identified as reshoring influencing factors (i.e. drivers, enablers and barriers).

Scholars need to consider what other theories can be used or developed to identify and evaluate the decision factors (determinants) of manufacturing reshoring as well as how currently adopted theory can be further advanced to create clearer and comprehensive theoretical frameworks.

This research underscores the importance of developing clearer and more comprehensive theoretical frameworks. For practitioners, understanding the multifaceted nature of decision factors could enhance strategic decision-making regarding reshoring initiatives.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the value and practicality of the Eclectic Paradigm in categorizing factors in manufacturing reshoring decision-making content and presents in-depth theoretical classifications. In addition, it bridges the gap between decision factors and influencing factors in the decision-making content research realm.

The existing literature expresses a strong need to develop tools that support the manufacturing reshoring decision-making process. This paper aims to examine the suitability of analytical hierarchy process (AHP)-based tools for initial screening of manufacturing reshoring decisions.

Two AHP-based tools for the initial screening of manufacturing reshoring decisions are developed. The first tool is based on traditional AHP, while the second is based on fuzzy-AHP. Six high-level and holistic reshoring criteria based on competitive priorities were identified through a literature review. Next, a panel of experts from a Swedish manufacturing company was involved in the overall comparison of the criteria. Based on this comparison, priority weights of the criteria were obtained through a pairwise analysis. Subsequently, the priority weights were used in a weighted-sum manner to evaluate 20 reshoring scenarios. Afterwards, the outputs from the traditional AHP and fuzzy-AHP tools were compared to the opinions of the experts. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate the stability of the developed decision support tools.

The research demonstrates that AHP-based support tools are suitable for the initial screening of manufacturing reshoring decisions. With regard to the presented set of criteria and reshoring scenarios, both traditional AHP and fuzzy-AHP are shown to be consistent with the experts' decisions. Moreover, fuzzy-AHP is shown to be marginally more reliable than traditional AHP. According to the sensitivity analysis, the order of importance of the six criteria is stable for high values of weights of cost and quality criteria.

The limitation of the developed AHP-based tools is that they currently only include a limited number of high-level decision criteria. Therefore, future research should focus on adding low-level criteria to the tools using a multi-level architecture. The current research contributes to the body of literature on the manufacturing reshoring decision-making process by addressing decision-making issues in general and by demonstrating the suitability of two decision support tools applied to the manufacturing reshoring field in particular.

This research provides practitioners with two decision support tools for the initial screening of manufacturing reshoring decisions, which will help managers optimize their time and resources on the most promising reshoring alternatives. Given the complex nature of reshoring decisions, the results from the fuzzy-AHP are shown to be slightly closer to those of the experts than traditional AHP for initial screening of manufacturing relocation decisions.

This paper describes two decision support tools that can be applied for the initial screening of manufacturing reshoring decisions while considering six high-level and holistic criteria. Both support tools are applied to evaluate 20 identical manufacturing reshoring scenarios, allowing a comparison of their output. The sensitivity analysis demonstrates the relative importance of the reshoring criteria.

Research studies on offshoring and reshoring have predominantly focused on the home company, widely ignoring the offshored company in the host country. The host company's influence and contribution have been unseen. This research explores how the host company responds to the home company's location decisions to maintain the dyadic relationship.

An exploratory case study in China was conducted to examine the host company's response to reshoring. The case company has two Japanese parent companies that acted for the emergence of reshoring drivers. Primary and secondary data were collected and analysed through thematic analysis. The host company's response strategies to the home company's relocation decisions were identified and explored.

The findings reveal that four strategies, identified here as being cost control, market expansion, knowledge seeking and relationship bonding, were implemented by the host company. The importance of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and knowledge transfer is also emphasised within these strategies.

This research identified active and practical strategies conducted by the host company to maintain a cooperative relationship with the home company(ies). Instead of encountering a passive response from the host company, the home company may consider working with the host to overcome difficulties caused by emerging reshoring drivers and create an outcome beneficial to both.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to study manufacturing reshoring from the perspective of the host company. It provides a new perspective to understanding this phenomenon.

Antibiotics shortages have become an increasingly common problem in Europe because of several reasons, including the offshoring of the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients for many of these products to low production cost countries, such as China and India. The problem has deteriorated because of the Covid-19 crisis that has put most global value chains (GVCs) under great stress. This situation has boosted extensive discussions among academics, practitioners and policymakers on possible changes to the configuration of GVCs. This paper aims to focus specifically on antibiotics supply chains from the perspective of a small country (Sweden), and analyse the pros and cons of backshoring and nearshoring alternatives, as a means to reduce drug shortages.

This work adopts a systemic perspective to capture the implications of reshoring for the different stakeholders involved in the antibiotics field. The present meso-analysis, focusing at the industry level, is based on multiple sources of primary data collected between 2014 and 2021, including participation in policy-related projects and interviews with over 100 representatives of key stakeholders in the antibiotics field.

This paper shows how reshoring can address the problems of drug shortages and reduce availability risk in antibiotics’ GVCs. However, the authors show that no simple and best solution exists because both alternatives of reshoring, i.e. backshoring and nearshoring, entail pros and cons for different stakeholders. The authors conclude with implications for policymakers and managers.

The analysis of pros and cons of both backshoring and nearshoring for various stakeholders offers relevant implications for research on operations and supply management, international business and economics/political science.

This paper looks at reshoring as a policy-driven decision and provides an innovative systemic perspective to analyse the implications for different stakeholders of two reshoring options concerning the antibiotics supply chain.