The impact of manufacturing and supply chain improvement initiatives: an empirical comparative analysis of make-to-order and make-to-stock firms
Författare
Summary, in English
Manufacturing firms aim at improving both internal and external processes to improve the competitive advantage. Such initiatives include lean practices as well as supplier rationalization and integration. In this paper, we analyze these improvement initiatives and their impact on business performance. In particular, we explore potential differences between make-to-order (MTO) and make-to-stock (MTS) firms. We use data from 216 Australian manufacturing firms. We find a clear difference of improvement focus between MTO and MTS firms. MTO firms exhibit a significant impact of supplier integration on business performance, but not for lean practices and supplier rationalization. The situation is completely reversed for MTS firms, since they have significant effects for internal lean practices and supplier rationalization, but not for logistics integration with supplier. The results show that the distinction between MTO and MTS firms is important when analyzing manufacturing and supply chain improvement initiatives.
Publiceringsår
2012
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
159-165
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Omega: the International Journal of Management Science
Volym
40
Issue
2
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Elsevier
Ämne
- Transport Systems and Logistics
Nyckelord
- Survey research
- decoupling point
- lean practices
- logistics integration
- supplier relationships
- business performance.
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 0305-0483