The diminishing utility of the product/process matrix

Advanced processing technologies, managerial practices, and information systems have merged as vital elements of modern day production. It has been argued that these changes in practice and technology have yielded a strategic manufacturing environ‐ment in the 1990s which is very different from that which existed in the 1970s and 1980s. Examines and documents these changes through the findings of a study in the US power tool industry of the effectiveness of the product‐process matrix in explaining the operations strategies of firms over the period 1970‐1990. Utilizes data from a detailed literature‐based survey, from on‐site interviews with executives and tours of manufacturing plants in the industry to explore the strategies followed over time by main and niche power tool firms competing in the US market. Shows that, while the Hayes and Wheelwright product‐process model captures many aspects of strategic operations decisions through 1980, changes have dramatically altered the competitive landscape and that many of the trade‐offs central to the model are no longer central to the articulation and formulation of operations strategy.

[1]  P. Swamidass Manufacturing strategy: Its assessment and practice , 1986 .

[2]  Daniel L. Orne,et al.  Generic manufacturing strategies: A conceptual synthesis , 1989 .

[3]  R. Yin Case Study Research: Design and Methods , 1984 .

[4]  Luk N. Van Wassenhove,et al.  Trade-offs? What Trade-offs? Competence and Competitiveness in Manufacturing Strategy , 1993 .

[5]  Roger G. Schroeder,et al.  Operations strategy: A literature review , 1989 .

[6]  B. J. Pine,et al.  Making mass customization work , 1993 .

[7]  R. Larsson Case Survey Methodology: Quantitative Analysis of Patterns Across Case Studies , 1993 .

[8]  William L. Berry,et al.  Measuring the Congruence Between Market Requirements and Manufacturing: A Methodology and Illustration* , 1997 .

[9]  Peter T. Ward,et al.  Research in the process and content of manufacturing strategy , 1990 .

[10]  A. Roth,et al.  A taxonomy of manufacturing strategies , 1994 .

[11]  Joel D. Goldhar,et al.  Computer Technology and International Competition: Part 2: Managing the “Factory of the Future” to Achieve Competitive Advantage , 1991 .

[12]  Roger G. Schroeder,et al.  The content of manufacturing strategy: An empirical study , 1986 .

[13]  Mariann Jelinek,et al.  Computer Integrated Flexible Manufacturing: Organizational, Economic, and Strategic Implications , 1985 .

[14]  T. Cook,et al.  Quasi-experimentation: Design & analysis issues for field settings , 1979 .

[15]  Roger G. Schroeder,et al.  The Process of Manufacturing Strategy: Some Empirical Observations and Conclusions , 1991 .

[16]  A. Meyer,et al.  Lasting Improvements in Manufacturing Performance: In Search of a New Theory , 1990 .

[17]  William J. Abernathy,et al.  Technology, productivity and process change , 1975 .

[18]  E. Adam,et al.  The impact of flexible manufacturing systems on productivity and quality , 1991 .

[19]  Carl R. Anderson,et al.  An exploratory study of the manufacturing strategy process in practice , 1990 .

[20]  H. Elizabeth Peters,et al.  Retrospective Versus Panel Data in Analyzing Lifecycle Events , 1988 .

[21]  Chuan Yi Tang,et al.  A 2.|E|-Bit Distributed Algorithm for the Directed Euler Trail Problem , 1993, Inf. Process. Lett..

[22]  P. Swamidass Manufacturing strategy: A selected bibliography , 1989 .