Strategic Planning of Global Production

Are today?s internationals capable of meeting the requirements of tomorrow?s global market? As industrialization marches on, the need for a better understanding of global production becomes more and more pressing. Within these companies, production units must be capable of supporting sales organizations in meeting the requirements of this future market. Steadily intensifying competition on parameters like quality, cost, service and delivery combined with the interest in doing business worldwide, amplified by political and technological developments just enhances the need for this understanding. Therefore today?s global business market is depicted even more entangled and dynamic than ever. In order to navigate this market, companies? management corps must broaden their knowledge base. Unfortunately, as many businesses are not fully aware of this situation, decisions are often made on the basis of shaky foundations, with significant costs to follow. Nevertheless, some of these costs may be reduced and market requirements more easily met if businesses better understand globalization and global production. In order to be able to understand this situation, and thereby support the process of the continuous development of global production, it is imperative to reach an understanding of the fundamentals of globalization. Globalization can be viewed from many different perspectives. Within each, a certain development is to be expected. More importantly, each perspective involves advantages as well as disadvantages, which may potentially ?collide? with those of other perspectives. Clearly, this implies that there is a set of dilemmas, which the understanding of is believed essential to the success of this research effort. Based on this understanding, the path of future production configurations can be laid out and continuously honed as the situation at hand develops. In cooperation with Grundfos Management A/S, this thesis was initiated to promote scholarship related to the planning activities necessary for global production. Special impetus for studying this area came from the firm?s worldwide sales organization, which acknowledged its inability to meet the requirements of tomorrow?s market alone. By applying the principles of action-oriented research, and with the situation described above in mind, this thesis aims to provide knowledge about the various perspectives of globalization so as to develop techniques and methods geared to continuously developing the production units at Grundfos. Generally, the objective is to apply this added knowledge to strengthen the Grundfos Group, and thereby help the organization maintain its position as market leader. CIP project group: Michael Saxtoft (Ph.D. researcher), Associate Professor Anders Drejer (Primary advisor), Professor John Johansen (Associate advisor) Case company: Grundfos Management A/S Project duration: Fall 2002 ? fall 2005.