Development of Holistic Operations Concepts

The development of operations concepts to supplement an industrial enterprise's overall operations strategy can be key in linking the enterprise's strategy planning to the design of its production system. However, for these concepts to provide a strategically viable picture of the essential goals this enterprise is working towards, employees representing various organizational constituents and layers must participate in the development process. The level of involvement determines ease of integration over time and contributes to the creation of a more coherent operations concept and, consequently, operations strategy. From a conventional point-of-view, the manufacturing division's focus on operational tasks ? filling orders and delivering products ? would seem to leave little time to devote to the development of strategy for this function. Yet operations strategy decisions are being made in enterprises all the time. Time Out sessions provide a chance to reflect on daily operations and scope out opportunities for change inherent in these everyday decisions, bringing an essential dynamism to the process of developing operations strategy. But to utilize this approach to the development of operations strategy effectively, employees must be able to break out of established frameworks, think strategically and innovatively. Accordingly, this project aims to develop new frameworks to support the organizational development process underlying the development of operations concepts. In connection with this, the project bids to draw the manufacturing division into a more proactive role in the making of strategic decisions. Two Danish firms, Alpha Diesel MAN and DEIF A/S, have acted as case companies in the development and testing of the concepts considered in this project. In current action research being conducted with partner company Grundfos Electronics, the focus has turned to the development of operations concepts and manufacturing strategies in new product introductions. As such, a further aim of this study is to establish a workbook to support the manufacturing division?s role in the concept development phase of NPI projects. In conjunction with the project, a period of six months was spent at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) participating in a book project on operations strategy in association with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program. Moreover, this project also incorporates the input culled from a series of interviews with members of top management from seven prominent U.S. manufacturing firms conducted during the same period. CIP project group: Henrik Jørgensen (Ph.D. researcher), Jens O. Riis (Primary advisor) Case companies: Alpha Diesel MAN, DEIF A/S, Grundfos A/S. Project duration: fall 1999 ? spring 2003