International Journal of Operations & Production Management: Volume 23 Issue 10

Guest editorial: New challenges in operations management

Harry Boer

Introduces the special issue of the papers presented at the 9th International EurOMA Conference, 2‐4 June 2002, Copenhagen, Denmark. The articles represent the wide variety of…

The formalisation of manufacturing strategy and its influence on the relationship between competitive objectives, improvement goals, and action plans

Nuran Acur, Frank Gertsen, Hongyi Sun, Jan Frick

This paper intends to contribute to a better understanding of manufacturing strategy content by describing and analysing the content and formalisation of manufacturing strategies…

E‐business strategy: How companies are shaping their supply chain through the Internet

Raffaella Cagliano, Federico Caniato, Gianluca Spina

The interest of both researchers and practitioners around the use of Internet‐based tools to support business processes has been quite high in the last few years. However, despite…

A mapping of competitive priorities, manufacturing practices, and operational performance in groups of Danish manufacturing companies

Thomas Christiansen, William L. Berry, Peter Bruun, Peter Ward

A sample of 63 Danish companies is divided into four strategic groups. Each group represents a distinct manufacturing strategy. These strategic groups are then used to investigate…

Operation and performance of international manufacturing networks

Ian Colotla, Yongjiang Shi, Michael J. Gregory

This paper seeks to explore the interplay and interdependencies of factory and network capabilities. This issue has become progressively more important as companies seek to manage…

Outsourcing into service factories: An exploratory analysis of facility operators in the German chemical industry

Stefan A. Seuring

Strategic outsourcing and supply chain integration issues have gained considerable attention in recent years. Concentration on core competencies usually addresses examples along…

The information and communication technologies productivity impact on the UK hotel sector

Marianna Sigala

Despite the great investments in information and communication technologies (ICT), research has not persuasively established corresponding productivity increases, while many…

Managing collaborative relationships in a period of discontinuity

Paul Coughlan, David Coghlan, Fiona Lombard, Louis Brennan, Timothy McNichols, Roger Nolan

The recent slowdown in the global economy has been a trigger for discontinuous change, prompting many organisations to re‐examine their collaborative strategies. This paper…

Jump‐starting continuous improvement through self‐assessment

Frances Jørgensen, Harry Boer, Frank Gertsen

The innumerable accounts of successful implementation of kaizen in Japan during more than 40 years has led to the expectation that continuous improvement (CI) might offer…

A classification of development programmes and its consequences for programme management

Ann Vereecke, Els Pandelaere, Dirk Deschoolmeester, Marleen Stevens

The paper describes the results of an exploratory study of the application of programme management in six companies. A classification of programmes developed may help in…