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The essential investments in new product development (NPD) made by industrial companies entail effective management of NPD activities. In this context, performance measurement is one of the means that can be employed in the pursuit of effectiveness.

The purpose of this article is to present Line Logic™ as a means of developing and building a company's portfolio of products.

The paper uses a sporting goods company in the USA as a case study to portray the implementation of Line Logic™.

An extensive analysis of the company and its implementation of the Line Logic™ methodology found that the company was operating in conjunction with a bow tie channel strategy.

A case study does an excellent job of capturing phenomena at a particular company. The Line Logic™ framework needs to be explored and reported in various companies, thus allowing multiple sources of data to highlight strengths and weaknesses of the Line Logic™ methodology.

There is no magic formula or prescription for managing a company's line of product offerings. Line Logic™ offers a disciplined approach to creating and presenting a full complement of product choices. As shown here, the implementation of Line Logic™ assists companies in understanding both strategic and tactical issues related to competitors and channel members.

While there are companies that execute some of the Line Logic™ system, this paper illustrates the importance of line logic in the sporting goods industry. Additionally, the paper introduces the concept of the bow tie in product line planning.

For those who like certainty, now is not a good time to be in logistics management ‐ for those who relish challenges, there are plenty to be had. There are challenges not just to the old certainties, but the new certainties which replaced them. Companies have, in recent years, looked to Japan for inspiration, only to find the Japanese economy beginning to falter. Japanese management practices were endorsed by, and imported into, many Western organizations and, when these transplanted practices failed to work, cultural difficulties were cited. It then becomes something of a shock, for example, to see the keiretsu distribution system fall into disrepute, and lean production methods become modified or abandoned by those who developed them.

This paper aims to identify the problem situations leading financial firms to kick off the elimination decision‐making process for financial products in their line, measure the importance of problem situations, and assess the effects of a set of contextual variables on the above importance.

The study took place in the UK; data were collected through 20 in‐depth interviews with managers of financial firms and a mail survey to a stratified random sample of financial firms, which yielded 112 returns.

Eight problem situations are identified and their importance is measured. The results indicate that the importance of problem situations is highly situation‐specific: it varies in relation to the degree of a financial firm's market orientation, the intensity of competition, the austerity of the regulatory environment, and the rhythm of technological change.

From a theoretical standpoint, future research on the investigation of the importance of decision variables pertaining to line pruning must always take into consideration the internal and the external context of the firm. From a practical standpoint, this study has important policy implications, since it provides managers with a first picture of the effects of selected contextual forces on the importance of the problem situations triggering line pruning in services settings. The limitations of the study provide useful avenues for future investigation.

This study represents the first attempt to measure the importance of different problem situations triggering line pruning in financial services and relate that importance to a set of contextual variables. As such, it makes a clear theoretical contribution.

One of the most important developments in banking is the increased emphasis on marketing a wide array of financial services. This emphasis has led to the adoption of the product management system in one form or another by many large, full‐service commercial banks. The transition to a product management system has required banks to change how they organize and manage their operations. Examines several of the major challenges and issues faced by product managers in the banking environment, namely, the identification of the product managers’ task responsibilities; the role of organizational support in facilitating product management; the influence of organizational culture; and the impact of power and conflict on product managers and the product management system. Also examines how product managers assess their job performance, work satisfaction, and the performance of the overall product management system in their bank. Develops directions for future research as well as several managerial recommendations to improve product management performance in banking.

In most businesses, strategic decisions are implemented by changes in the components of the product line or shifts in emphasis within a product line. In fact, most products actually belong to a line sold through the same distribution channel and this is true for cars, dog foods, electronic equipment, or even raw materials or travel tour packages. Also, each individual product is a quite rigid offering which cannot easily meet the changes in the market place. Thus gradual changes in emphasis within a product line make possible adaptive strategic moves that satisfy the needs for continuity in the business and for discretion in respect to competitors. But this fundamental business aspect is often overlooked. Marketeers wonder if they should decrease the price of their existing products to make room for a newcomer. They wonder if they have enough products in the line. They wonder if they should advertise the highest or the lowest part of their product line, and do not find easy ready answers. In fact, most business or marketing concepts seem to be related to individual products or different markets. Dealing with product line strategies is nevertheless one of the most important areas in market strategy.

Discusses product line change ‐ the process by which a company alters its product offering ‐ and how it is one of the most important kinds of business activity. Suggests that product modification and product elimination decisions be treated together as two amongst a number of alternative courses of action. States that the concern is with the “weak product identification” stage of the product modification/elimination process. Posits that there are a number of key performance dimensions/criteria though some of the approaches in this category are concerned only with identifying weak products. Aims to put forward some empirical evidence with regard to the identification of weak products. Implies, in conclusion, that the study indicates that the identification of weak product activities does not resemble the normative models in this area. Identifies that further research needs to be conducted and that these researches should include performance measures to allow normative conclusions to be drawn, perhaps using company interviews

Drawing upon theory on organizational decision speed, this study aims to take a first step toward an understanding of the temporal aspect of the elimination decision‐making process in financial services (i.e. the process of withdrawing an item from the product line) and in particular of the organizational, product‐specific and environmental determinants of the speed of the elimination decision‐reaching and the elimination implementation processes.

Data were collected through a mail survey to a stratified random sample of 500 UK financial institutions, yielding 167 returns.

The paper finds first, the speed of elimination decision‐reaching is shaped by product line length, market orientation, formalization, technological change, and the austerity of the regulatory context. Second, the speed of the elimination implementation process is influenced by whether the item that is considered for elimination is a typical bank, insurance, or mortgage product, by its delivery method, and by whether it is for the retail or the corporate market.

By responding to an array of issues highlighted as important research directions by previous studies on organizational decision‐speed, this study has useful theoretical implications. The findings also provide practitioners with a first picture of how the pace of their line rationalization plans may be impeded or accelerated by a set of contextual factors.

The study represents the first attempt to examine the service elimination process (i.e. a marketing decision area) in relation to decision speed (i.e. a central aspect of organizational decision making). As such, it makes a clear inter‐disciplinary contribution.

In this paper, the authors elaborate the notion of a hybrid factory: factories in which some production capacity is dedicated to process‐oriented manufacturing, and some is dedicated to product‐oriented manufacturing. We present the results of a field study of one such factory and, using it as an example, develop a list of eight issues that may arise as a part of implementing and managing a hybrid factory. Where possible, we tie these issues into existing research streams. We show how our field site addressed these issues and, based on their experience, suggest new areas for investigation by researchers. An examination of the way our field site implemented and managed a hybrid factory also provides insight for managers facing similar situations.

When managers launch a new product line into a category already served, they must decide whether to launch this as a line extension or as a second brand. This research seeks to identify how this decision is influenced by the position of the original product and the options available for positioning the new product. A model of the influences on brand and line extension success is developed and used to formulate a series of competing hypotheses about the factors that influence the decisions of managers. These hypotheses are tested using survey data from producers in the Australian wine industry. The results suggest managers seek to exploit the benefits available from the transfer of attributes to the new line, and minimise the risk of cannibalisation.