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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/01443579510083622. When citing the article, please cite: Andy Neely, Mike Gregory, Ken Platts, (1995), “Performance measurement system design: A literature review and research agenda”, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 15 Iss: 4, pp. 80 - 116.

This paper aims to describe an interactive action planning software tool (TAPS) for manufacturing objective deployment, and to report the results of its application in five companies.

A process approach based on action research was adopted in this research. Under this approach, a series of four to five workshops were conducted in each company. Each workshop took half a day and involved a multi‐disciplinary team of four to six managers. Besides direct observation in the workshops, a structured questionnaire was also used to elicit managers' feedback at the end of each workshop.

The TAPS approach (integration of Burbidge's connectance concept and the analytic hierarchy process) helps managers to visualise and represent their perceptions of the relationships between variables and objectives through a sequential, analytical process. Results from the case studies indicate that TAPS provides the following benefits to managers: it improves collective understanding, reduces the complexity of strategy deployment into manageable steps, facilitates discussion, and manages organizational knowledge.

The research is so far limited to application in five case studies. Future research will involve further cases and improvements to the usability of the software tool.

For practitioners, the paper provides them with an interactive software tool (TAPS) for effective strategic action planning. For academics, this paper provides an approach for researching strategy deployment, and a potential classroom teaching tool for operations management.

Discusses a refinement to the process by which manufacturing strategy is created. Builds on an existing strategy process (Platts, 1990) and adapts it to fit more closely within the dynamic manufacturing vision. The method for creating a manufacturing vision allows a business to do this in a two‐ to three‐week period as part of a 10‐12 week manufacturing strategy project. A conceptual model of manufacturing vision has been developed that enables practitioners to explore the factors that influenced the potential competitive contribution of manufacturing and to agree an explicit direction for change. Describes the successful application of the process in six manufacturing organizations and highlights the practical limitations of the approach.

This paper describes a longitudinal picture of manufacturing strategy called a strategy chart. It begins with a summary of the research methodology used to develop and test the picture in live situations. Next, the chart and its role within an overall manufacturing strategy process are described. Case examples are then used to illustrate practical outcomes of a longitudinal viewpoint in two areas; first, to increase the awareness of a firm′s strategy making process and, second, to make strategies more explicit than previous methods. The method produces a rich picture that appears useful for reviewing the coherence between manufacturing and business strategy; showing strategy as concrete actions as well as objectives and plans; for providing insight into the firm′s realised strategy and its strategy process; and as a strategy communication tool which may make strategies more credible.

Proposes a framework for considering the factors relevant to the design of manufacturing strategy processes. The framework is built from manufacturing and business strategy literature through a review which positions popular strategies like Cellular manufacturing, TQM and JIT within more traditional manufacturing strategy frameworks and includes aspects of strategy that have been rarely mentioned in the manufacturing strategy literature. Thus competence, capability, culture and alternative strategy process modes are incorporated and throughout the review potential influences on the design of the strategy process are identified. Finally the framework′s ability to assist the design of a manufacturing strategy process is tested and the dependence of key process elements like the procedure and tools used are shown to be contingent on, for example, the outputs required from the process and the content areas under development.

Much has been written about manufacturing strategy and its role in supporting firms in achieving competitive advantage in the marketplace. However, little is available on the process of manufacturing objective deployment, that is, on how to translate a given objective into the choice of action plans. There is a lack of methods to assist managers in identifying the range of alternative actions prior to arriving at a final decision. To address this gap, this paper revisits Burbidge’s connectance model and explains how the concept could be utilised as a tool for manufacturing improvement action plan selection. A software tool, tool for action plan selection was developed based on the concept and tested in a number of industrial case studies. This paper concludes by discussing the implication of this work for managers and academics.

The key to executing strategy is to have people in the organisation understand it. As the complexity of the business environment increases, good communication and shared understanding among managers are vital. Managers need to present increasing amounts of information to one another clearly and effectively. A good diagram can convey instantly, and memorably, a relationship that would otherwise require a laborious and easily forgotten explanation. However, a review of the literature shows that little is available to guide managers in applying visualisation techniques to assist them in a strategy formulation process. This paper briefly reviews visualisation, and explores how visualisation can be used to support strategic decision making. The different visualisation requirements of a strategy formulation process are discussed. Then, a range of strategy tools developed by the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, is introduced and their applications are described. Finally, a strategy visualisation framework, which might help practising managers identify useable visualisation tools for strategy formulation; and help researchers identify where future research in visualisation would be industrially relevant, is introduced.

Performance measurement is increasingly important in every aspect of life today. Unfortunately, the main emphasis appears to be on historical measures, justifying or reporting actions after the event, rather than process measures, monitoring activities as they occur. Thus, existing performance measurement frameworks have shortcomings that may prevent them from being an effective control and predict mechanism for business operations. To address these shortcomings, this paper proposes the use of Burbidge's connectance concept and the Incremental Calculus approach for building an “indicative” scorecard for performance measurement. An example of this approach is given, and plans for further research are discussed.

In the UK as more and more traditional manufacturing is being outsourced to lower-cost countries, the development of manufacturing start-up companies is increasingly perceived as important in sustaining a competitive UK manufacturing base. However, start-up companies are often associated with a high failure rate, particularly during the early stages of operation. As they have yet to build up the strength and resources to sustain them through internal and external crises, start-ups operate under conditions that constantly challenge their survival. Developing the most appropriate manufacturing strategy is probably more critical in start-up companies than in established organisations, yet little research has addressed this area.

This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study involving six UK manufacturing start-up companies. A novel manufacturing strategy content framework is proposed. The chapter also examines the business orientation (technology-push or market-pull) adopted by the case companies, and investigates how business orientations influenced their manufacturing strategies. This leads to two business orientation mobility models. This chapter concludes by discussing the use of the frameworks and suggesting how they might be put into practice to provide assistance to operational managers in start-up companies.

This article describes an updateable picture of manufacturing strategy content, called a “strategy chart”. It is based on established manufacturing and business strategy theory and is designed for use by managers in a wider strategy development process. Three cases are used to examine and improve methods for constructing a strategy chart; to explore the biases inherent in this representation of strategy; and to assess its utility. Preliminary conclusions are that charts present manufacturing strategy content more holistically than normally achieved and can make “strategy” a more understandable and communicable concept for manufacturing managers and workforce. The approach also provides useful insight into the development of a firm’s manufacturing strategy over time, providing the potential for managers to examine their strategy process and to learn from the past.