Manufacturing operations in Europe:: Where do we go next?

doi:10.1016/S0263-2373(98)00003-6

European Management Journal

Volume 16, Issue 3, June 1998, Pages 262-271

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-2373(98)00003-6 Get rights and content

Abstract

Extrapolating from the results of a 10-year INSEAD Survey, Arnoud De Meyer offers some views on the future for manufacturing in Europe. The model on which the Survey was based indicates that competitive priorities and action plans in manufacturing changed over the 10-year period. Taking lessons from these, the author makes some `informed guesses' on the future implications for European manufacturers in the form of seven normative features: innovation in the value package; close integration between manufacturing and service; the importance of internationalism; flexible project-based organisation; more integrated management of the value added chain; successful transformation of operational programmes into strategic programmes; and building a knowledge-based organisation.

Section snippets

A brief history of manufacturing management

The evolution of Manufacturing Management was to a large extent triggered by two correlated types of observations. The early eighties were characterised by a series of papers on the successes of Japanese manufacturers in the area of inventory reduction and quality management. At the same time there were a number of papers exhorting Western manufacturers to put manufacturing again on the strategic agenda. In one of the more influential books Wheelright and Hayes (1984)argued that manufacturing

Ten years of empirical research on manufacturing strategy

In 1984 we started, at INSEAD, to monitor manufacturing strategy in Europe. In order to do so we administered every second year a survey of 200 large European manufacturers in close collaboration with research teams all over the world.² In 1986 a major redesign of the questionnaire was implemented and thus we will limit ourselves here to data covering the period from 1986 to 1996.

The questionnaire was based

And today?

Before we speculate where this will lead, we may want to spend some time on the more detailed results of the 1996 survey itself. Based on the European data and the data provided by my Japanese colleague, Katayama Hiroshi, we can derive some insights. In Table 4, Table 5, and Table 6 we have put together the rank order of competitive priorities, perceived pay-off of past action programmes, and future emphasis on action programmes. The items in bold are those which are significantly higher for

Where will this lead us?

More emphasis on price competition and thus a continuing drive for delocalisation, a refocusing on human resources, a decline in the emphasis of quality as a competitive tool, and a group of Japanese manufacturers which emphasise innovation through a more intensive deployment of IT. What does this imply for European manufacturers? I will provide an `informed guess' as to where this will lead in Europe as a series of seven normative statements.

1.
Lowering costs is necessary to win the price battle,

ARNOUD DE MEYER, INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77305, Fontainebleau, Cedex, France.

Arnoud De Meyer is Director-General of INSEAD, Professor of Technology Management and ARZO Nobel Fellow in Strategic Management. He is an electro-technical engineer with a doctoral degree in management from the State University of Ghent. His main research interests are in manufacturing and technology management, the implementation of new manufacturing technologies and the management of R&D. He has published on

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ARNOUD DE MEYER, INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77305, Fontainebleau, Cedex, France.

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