Increasing competition in the market causes continued pressures for many companies to control or reduce costs. This has led to various responses by companies to seek more…
Abstract
Increasing competition in the market causes continued pressures for many companies to control or reduce costs. This has led to various responses by companies to seek more efficient operating models, in which the location where activities are performed has become a key determinant. The fast pace at which many low‐cost regions are developing into acceptable business environments has offered enormous opportunities for companies to change their geographic network of operations. The result is an ongoing shift of activities from welldeveloped, but high‐cost areas to low‐cost locations elsewhere in the world. This paper describes the relocation trends in the last decade, the drivers for cost reduction and the responses of companies. A location evaluation approach is described which helps to understand the cost and quality of doing business in various locations. Typically, there is a trade‐off between those two dimensions: low‐cost locations offer lower quality, whereas higher‐quality locations are more expensive. The challenge for companies aiming at cost reduction is to identify those locations where costs are low and quality is at an acceptable level.
Details
Keywords
Wilfred H. Knol, Kristina Lauche, Roel L.J. Schouteten and Jannes Slomp
Building on the routine dynamics literature, this paper aims to expand our philosophical, practical and infrastructural understanding of implementing lean production. The authors…
Abstract
Purpose
Building on the routine dynamics literature, this paper aims to expand our philosophical, practical and infrastructural understanding of implementing lean production. The authors provide a process view on the interplay between lean operating routines and continuous improvement (CI) routines and the roles of different actors in initiating and establishing these routines.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data from interviews, observations and document analysis, retrospective comparative analyses of three embedded case studies on lean implementations provide a process understanding of enacting and patterning lean operating and CI routines in manufacturing SMEs.
Findings
Incorporating the “who” and “how” next to the “what” of practices and routines helps explain that rather than being implemented in isolation or even in conjunction with each other, sustainable lean practices and routines come about through team leader and employee enactment of the CI practices and routines. Neglecting these patterns aligned with unsustainable implementations.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed process model provides a valuable way to integrate variance and process streams of literature to better understand lean production implementations.
Practical implications
The process model helps manufacturing managers, policy makers, consultants and educators to reconsider their approach to implementing lean production or teaching how to do so.
Originality/value
Nuancing the existing lean implementation literature, the proposed process model shows that CI routines do not stem from implementing lean operating routines. Rather, the model highlights the importance of active engagement of actors at multiple organizational levels and strong connections between and across levels to change routines and work practices for implementing lean production.