Centre for International Manufacturing

Intra-firm manufacturing networks

International manufacturing network research investigates relationships within individual global companies and ways in which they might be optimised. What might be the best ways to design or reconfigure a global manufacturing and engineering network?

This research aims to understand the complex factors that influence both the appropriateness of manufacturing network configurations and also the processes by which companies design networks.

Such research involves:

• working with blue-chip manufacturing and engineering-service companies to reconfigure their global networks.
• collaborating with a forum of non-competing companies to develop methodologies and share best practices in the emerging field of manufacturing network design and operation.
• Pursuing cross border merger and acquisition synergies by developing strategy processes and sets of practical tools and techniques needed to achieve cross-border merger and acquisition synergy and global manufacturing system integration.

Current research projects

• Headquarters and manufacturing subsidiary relationships (Omar Salgado-Ramirez)
• Internationalisation process (in China) (Kaimei Wang)
• Achieving manufacturing synergy in international horizontal M&As (Rui Zhang)
• Global engineering networks: configurations and capabilities (Yufeng Zhang)
• Dynamic capability of born-global SMEs (Darryl C-H Liang)
• Product integration of M&As (Zung Anh Vu)
• Overseas manufacturing investment: risk and reward management (Mukesh Kumar)
• Multinational companies' GM footprints & key performance indicators (Di Wang )
• M&As - strategy for growth (Cindy Ying Chen)