Automated Manufacturing Creates Market Opportunities

A fundamental feature of strategy formulation is to identify a sustainable advantage over competitors. As Coyne [1] points out, a competitive advantage must be based upon a gap between the firm's capabilities and that of its competitors. This capability gap (which has to produce differences in product/delivery attributes which customers perceive to be important) may arise from many and varied sources, such as the geographic position of offices and plant; legal constraints on trade like licences and patents; managerial and organisational capabilities; consumer awareness and reputation; and manufacturing capabilities. It is, however, apparent that the role of manufacturing in providing the basis for creating a distinctive competence has received little attention. For example, Romano [2] commented that 'management has traditionally treated these activities (viz. manufacturing and physical distribution) independently, often without reference to the company's overall corporate strategy or its other major functions, such as finance, marketing and human resources'. In particular, this failure to integrate marketing and manufacturing strategies has recently been receiving an increasing amount of comment and a number of commentators (eg. Hayes and Wheelwright [3]) have sought to provide frameworks to assist their integration.