13th Cambridge International Manufacturing Symposium

Global Value Chains - capturing value in international manufacturing and supply networks
25 - 26 September 2008 at the Møller Centre, Cambridge

Papers

The Mattel recall crisis: politics and process in product recalls

Steve New and Dana Brown, Said Business School, University of Oxford

This paper summarizes the events surrounding the dramatic product recalls of Mattel toys during 2007. Drawing on press reports and official documents, the paper explores the way in which issues relating supply chain integration, product inspection and quality management become part of political discourse. We observe that the public discourse surrounding these events can become disconnected from the operational reality, and lead to potentially dysfunctional regulatory responses.

Operations strategy and management in turbulent environments

Ian Hipkin, Exeter University

Conception of a methodology for a comprehensive procurement market selection

Gisela Lanza and Stefan Weiler, University of Karlsruhe

Enabling international manufacturing: the globalisation of quality management

James Tannock, Nottingham University Business School

Quality management and operational effectiveness have been key to the globalisation of manufacturing in recent decades. Approaches and techniques have been adopted across the world, which have facilitated the international supply chains of today, by raising the performance of suppliers in developing countries to acceptable levels. This paper reviews the development and global dissemination of these approaches and associated techniques. Three areas of theory background are first reviewed: management rhetoric and ideology, management trends and fashions and national culture. Results from studies in three developing or newly-industrialised countries are then presented and key conclusions identified. Finally elements of a theory to help explain the mechanism of the globalisation of quality management and operational effectiveness are proposed.

Technological learning, knowledge spillover, and dynamics of innovation networks in the evolution of manufacturing cluster: evidence from China

Bin GUO and Jingjing Guo, Zhejiang University

Strategic outsourcing for sustainable competitive advantages: Case studies of multi-national corporations (MNCs) in China

Mingu Kang, Professor Xiaobo Wu, Zhejiang University; Professor Paul Hong, Univeristy of Toledo

Role of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises in Global Supply Chains: an overview and research agenda

Jurong Zheng, University of Bath

Conceptual Framework for measuring complexity in global virtual manufacturing of supply systems

Khir Harun, Brunel University

Leadership in bus and truck production: how "modular consortium" has achieved it

Augusto da Cunha Reis, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro

China's Global Hybrid Model: a new path to development under globalization

Doug Fuller, King's College, London

Means for transferring knowledge in the relocation of manufacturing units - to make complicated technologies simple

Erik Skov Madsen, Yang Cheng and Jirapha Liangsiri, Aalborg University

Manufacturing footprint: a value chain approach

Sami Farooq, Aalborg University; Chris O'Brien, University of Nottingham Ningbo

How inter-firm network influence the absorptive capacity in a dynamic operating environment? one case in china

Xiaobo Wu, Yu Hong, Wang Zhangle, Zhejiang University

The practical challenges of servitized manufacture on its supply network

M Bastl, M Johnson, S Evans, T Baines and H Lightfoot, Cranfield University

Strategically leveraging the local and global orientations

Jiang Yu and Lan Chen, Chinese Academy of Sciences

A study on Kaizen case transfer for improvement of mobility of Kaizen technology

Koichi Murata and Hiroshi Katayama, Graduate School of Creative Science and Engineering, Waseda University

In this paper, focusing on Kaizen technology as an effective vehicle of Kaizen or continuous improvement, Kaizen case transfer and its effectiveness are discussed. There are one proposal and two trials. For the proposal, framework of Kaizen case transfer is designed. This framework, setting Kaizen case-base as the central function that classify Kaizen cases effectively by utilization of driver and instance, contributes to improve mobility of Kaizen technologies. For the two trials, especially focusing on Visual Management technologies as one of Kaizen technologies, building preliminary Kaizen case-base and primary Kaizen case-base with retrieval function are performed. First trial gives four future works for realizing Kaizen case transfer. Analysis of proximity relationship among Kaizen cases and retrieval experiment is performed for approaching considered future works in second trial.

Second generation outsourcing - decomposition and the international transfer of knowledge intensive activities

Dmitrij Slepniov and Brian Vejrum Waehrens, Center for Industrial Production, Aalborg University

This paper is concerned with second generation outsourcing, a recent phenomena where critical activities with a significant historically generated knowledge base are outsourced to an external partner. We seek to develop a more nuanced understanding of second generation outsourcing decisions and their consequences, as well as formulate a number of propositions on how companies can develop organisational capability to successfully outsource knowledge intensive activities internationally. The empirical part of the paper is based on an illustrative case of a company, which worked its way through a second generation outsourcing initiative. The case is developed based on interviews, documents and site visits. We find that the second generation outsourcing tasks environment makes new demands on the relational structure as well as its supporting infrastructure. We propose that the decision to dispatch knowledge intensive critical production tasks to parties overseas have implications far beyond contractual considerations. It forces the involved parties continuously revisit their sourcing relations, redefining the scope of activities as well as the infrastructure underlying it. From this key lessons for practitioners are outlined, which prompt managers to work with the emerging realities of second generation outsourcing.

Planning and Decision Procedures for Networked (Network Centric) Manufacturing for a Photovoltaic (PV) Industry Network case

Hermann Kühnle, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg and Dinnies von der Osten Goodvent Beteiligungsmanagement GmbH & Co Kg

Collaborative Networks support a variety of structural adaptabilities and flexibilities, concerning sites, technologies, and market access as well as process capabilities. Networked (Network Centric) Manufacturing is one way of organising collaborations that enables to make use of all these options. A procedure for decisions on network adaptations is outlined, which is based on criticality and complexity thinking and focuses on rich surrounding networks of partners and supporting units.

Inter-firm knowledge diffusion and partnering strategies of MNCs: A computational simulation study

Yongyi Shou, School of Management, Zhejiang University and Yilun Huang, Department of Instrument Science & Engineering, Zhejiang University

With the rapid globalization in recent decades, more and more companies have extended their value chain worldwide. For those multi-national corporations (MNCs), they have their suppliers, customers, partners and competitors in different regions. A major operation decision of such global companies is how to select potential partners within a given region or industry. Many factors are involved in the partnering strategy. In this paper, the authors regard the target region or industry as an inter-firm network, and examine the effect of different partnering strategy from the viewpoint of knowledge diffusion within the target network. A computational simulation based on multi-agent method reveals that some strategies are more suitable for certain strategic purpose.

Supply chain management in emerging markets – Implications of contextual constraints for internationalisation and strategy

Harri Lorentz, Turku School of Economics

The purpose of the paper is to explore the nature and implications of supply chain management in emerging markets (EM), (1) by elaborating on the theoretical construct of EM contextual supply chain constraint, (2) by proposing a classification of EM contextual supply chain constraints, and (3) by putting forth testable propositions related to the EM contextual supply chain constraints. The paper is conceptual in nature, while it additionally draws on the author's previous empirical research on the topic. The paper proposes that EM contextual supply chain constraints spring either from the characteristics of institutions, networks or infrastructure. The degree to which a foreign company is affected by a constraint, depends on the role of supply chain management in the firm's business model. EM contextual supply chain constraints are proposed to result in suboptimal supply chain configurations, delayed or cancelled internationalisation, and lower performance.