Comparing Manufacturing Practices in North America and Western Europe: Are There Any Surprises?

his research tests the broad hypothesis (using data from the Global Manufacturing Re- search Group) that there are few significant differences in the manufacturing practices of Western Europe and North America . The hypothesis holds for the stringent test used in this paper to disclose the differences . In general, no surprises were uncovered, but know- ledge of the differences that were found could be of importance to some firms

Benchmarking best manufacturing practices: a study into four sectors of Turkish industry

Reports on a benchmarking study conducted to quantify how well companies operating in various sectors of Turkish industry match up to best practice, both in the practices they adopt and in the operational outcomes that result, and to test the hypothesis that the closer a company is to best practice, the more likely it is for that company to achieve higher business performance. The survey conducted in 1997 and 1998 included 82 companies from the Turkish electronics, cement, automotive sectors and part and component suppliers to the appliance industry. For data gathering. employs the Competitive Strategies and Best Practices Benchmarking Questionnaire, supported ly, some follow-up interviews and one-day site visits. Classifies two small groups of companies as leaders and laggers, depending on how close they were to best practice. Shows that the leaders have performed better than the laggers in adopting best manufacturing practices and in the achievement of high performance La,els. The leaders also have achieved substantially higher business performance than the laggers. Furthermore, observes that large-sized companies outperform the rest both in terms of their success in implementing best manufacturing practices and in achieving high operational outcomes and that there is no appreciable difference between industrial sectors in implementing best manufacturing practices and in achieving high operational outcomes

Labour productivity change: drivers, business impact and macroeconomic moderators

This paper focuses on the operational drivers of labour productivity changes. We consider two sets of drivers: a) current working practices b) changes in working practices through management programs. The relationship between these two sets of drivers and productivity changes are analysed. We also investigate the importance of productivity growth by looking at the impact of labour productivity changes on business performance changes. Finally, the moderating effects of industry and country on the use of drivers of productivity changes are examined. Data from an international survey, IMSS-IV, are used for the analysis

Operations research models and methods for safety stock determination: A review

In supply chain inventory management it is generally accepted that safety stocks are a suitable strategy to deal with demand and supply uncertainty aiming to prevent inventory stock-outs. Safety stocks have been the subject of intensive research, typically covering the problems of dimensioning, positioning, managing and placement. Here, we narrow the scope of the discussion to the safety stock dimensioning problem, consisting in determining the proper safety stock level for each product. This paper reports the results of a recent in-depth systematic literature review (SLR) of operations research (OR) models and methods for dimensioning safety stocks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic review of the application of OR-based approaches to investigate this problem. A set of 95 papers published from 1977 to 2019 has been reviewed to identify the type of model being employed, as well as the modeling techniques and main performance criteria used. At the end, we highlight current literature gaps and discuss potential research directions and trends that may help to guide researchers and practitioners interested in the development of new OR-based approaches for safety stock determination.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020, and by the European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Program (COMPETE 2020) [Project no. 39479, Funding reference: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-39479]