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Like productivity in the 1970s and quality in the 1980s, flexibility will be the popular operations and production management theme in the 1990s. Contrary to much of what is being written, warns that flexibility is not necessarily achieved through computer integration. Enthusiasm to embrace flexibility in order to achieve competitive advantage often leads to integration projects which are inadequately planned and under designed. Such projects do not result in true flexible integration but rather in what the author terms hard integration. Similar to the tooling in a hard automated system, the information interfaces in a hard integrated system are linked in a fixed and rigid manner. Hard integration reduces, not enhances, flexibility.

An extensive search has shown that no business process reengineering (BPR) method specifically addresses the issue of selecting business processes for reengineering based on the processes’ impact on the firm’s strategic objectives. Focusing on strategic business units (SBUs) within the electronics and electrical components industry, the research reported in this paper develops a generic set of SBU business processes which is used, in conjunction with an existing set of generic strategic objectives, to create a decision model that assesses the performance and improvement potential of each business process with respect to the SBU’s collective strategic objectives. The decision model, which contains both deterministic and stochastic elements, is based upon the concepts of decision tree analysis and influence diagramming. Validation of both the set of business processes and the decision support system has been conducted through field studies at electronics and electrical components companies. The results from these studies have been very promising.

Discusses the movement away from hierarchical organizational structures towards flatter, heterarchical, structures which is reflected in the growing interest in distributed manufacturing control systems. Traditional hierarchical control systems are limited by the breadth, quantity and timeliness of information needed for their operation. Distributed, heterarchical, control systems overcome these hierarchical limitations but, concurrently, forfeit advantages of the hierarchy including analytically optimal loading patterns and centralized pristine data tracking. Classifies existing research into four categories and documents a progression of heterarchical control approaches to inject some of the advantages of the traditional hierarchy into new heterarchical frameworks. Concludes that neither hierarchical nor heterarchical control structures are ideal in their pure form and, hence, proposes a modified structure, called the quasi‐heterarchical control system, which is a combination of, and a compromise between, pure hierarchy and pure heterarchy.

With risk defined as the possibility of deviation in the results from the expected goals, business process reengineering (BPR) initiatives clearly involve risk taking. However, due to the high expected returns of such efforts, the acceptable risk levels of BPR will tend to be greater than those of less ambitious projects. This research reports the development of a tool to quantitatively estimate the potential risk level of a BPR effort before an organization commits its resources to that effort. The underlying research employed a survey of BPR‐experienced organizations to collect assessment information in order to build a BPR risk estimation model. The developed tool uses triangular fuzzy numbers to approximate the degree of success/failure of proposed BPR initiatives. The tool can be applied by any organization contemplating BPR, thus giving such organizations a heretofore unavailable estimate of the risk level of proposed BPR efforts. Validation was performed based upon an 18‐month BPR project conducted at the Missouri Lottery.

Patient satisfaction is becoming increasingly important for the successful operation of private and public hospitals. The quality of the service provided can be improved if internal and external customers’ opinions are taken into account during the definition of hospital operating objectives. This research presents a new methodology, called the simulation service quality system (SSQS), developed to improve operating performance measures in the light of customer preferences. The motivation for the development of the SSQS methodology arose from the need to achieve timeliness standards at United States Veterans’ Hospitals. The Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital in Columbia Missouri served as the validation and initial application site for the SSQS methodology. Details one such project: the objective of reducing customer waiting times to 30 minutes or less at an outpatient treatment clinic. Through the identification of relationships and interactions, discrete‐event simulation techniques are applied to model and experiment with the system to ultimately arrive at recommended changes in hospital operating policies which achieve the objective.

Describes efforts to extend the use of quality function deployment (QFD) to manufacturing strategy development. QFD uses a house of quality to translate the “voice of the customer” into engineering specifications. Originally developed and applied as a powerful tool for concurrent product and process design, QFD is widely used in industry as a technique within total quality management (TQM). The approach has only recently been applied in strategic planning. Describes how the traditional QFD concepts and methods can be used in the formulation of manufacturing strategy to ensure alignment with business strategy. Presents a case study at a powdered metals manufacturer to show how the QFD methodology can be adapted for use in manufacturing strategy formulation.

Quality improvement continues to be an important international business strategy as we enter the twenty‐first century. Legal requirements, customer demand, market pressure, competition, and the need for in‐house quality improvement has driven more companies to become ISO 9000 registered. Implementing ISO 9000 is expensive, time‐consuming, and requires significant dedication and effort. Investment in such a project calls for detailed analysis and justification. This research paper proposes a multi‐attribute analysis and justification model based on the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for implementing the ISO 9000 quality system standard. The model is developed based on case studies at companies which underwent the process of registration and by the synthesis of relevant literature both on ISO 9000 and techniques of analysing similar projects. The model has been applied and validated in companies that are both ISO 9000 registered and are pursuing ISO 9000.