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Identifying the UK’s manufacturing challenges as a benchmark for future growth

142 Received 16 August 2010 Revised 9 March 2011 Accepted 17 April 2011

Andrew J. Thomas Newport Business School, University of Wales Newport, Newport, UK

Paul Byard Engineering Employers Federation, Bridgend, UK, and

Roger Evans Schaeffler Bearing Company, Llanelli, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to recognise the key manufacturing challenges currently facing UK manufacturing industry and to further identify the Key Developmental Areas (KDAs) (which includes technologies, systems and paradigms) which need to be developed and employed in order to ensure manufacturing firms in the UK become economically sustainable and are able to operate effectively in a global competitive market. The aim of the paper is to provide a benchmark for UK manufacturing industry to work from, after which future measuring instruments could be employed to track whether companies are meeting these challenges. Design/methodology/approach – A survey into 100 UK manufacturing companies provides the basis for the identification of the challenges and KDAs. The findings from the survey are analysed against information obtained from existing strategy reports and foresight papers/studies to reach a point where the authors identify a balanced set of challenges and developmental areas obtained from this mixed research approach. Findings – Through a comprehensive academic and industrial study, the authors identify and propose nine key manufacturing challenges for UK manufacturing industry to consider. Furthermore, the authors also identify a number of the KDAs which could be used to assist companies in meeting these challenges. The KDAs are not meant to be exhaustive but aimed to provide the underpinning support to the challenges proposed. Research limitations/implications – The paper proposes a set of key manufacturing challenges for UK manufacturing businesses to consider and apply appropriate technologies and systems to achieve business resilience. This paper will therefore be of benefit to the academic community in that it distils a wide range of academic theory and industrial practice in order to create a coherent body of knowledge. As with any survey work, the accuracy of information depends largely on the size of the survey. Whilst 100 companies were surveyed, a further extension to this number would always help to strengthen future research. Originality/value – The identification of these key manufacturing challenges and their corresponding technologies, systems and paradigms is aimed at providing a new manufacturing perspective to both academics and industrialists. The challenges and developmental areas proposed provide the basis for a new and advanced manufacturing strategy to be developed for UK companies which aims to create economically sustainable manufacturing organisations. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management Vol. 23 No. 2, 2012 pp. 142-156 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1741-038X DOI 10.1108/17410381211202160

Keywords United Kingdom, Manufacturing industries, Industry competitiveness, Economic sustainability, Key developmental areas, Manufacturing challenges, Strategy Paper type Research paper

Introduction The face of the UK manufacturing industry has changed radically and rapidly over the course of the last 20-30 years. The shift from the heavy industrial manufacturing landscape typified in the 1970s and 1980s has quickly made way for a much more vibrant, high-tech manufacturing environment facilitated through inward investment. This shift in manufacturing focus and corresponding capability has honed the UK’s manufacturing workforce into a highly adaptive and responsive asset capable of learning, adapting and overcoming major strategic shifts in manufacturing. As a result of this continually changing manufacturing landscape, significant strategic shifts and technological advancements will continue as UK industry adjusts to the opportunities and threats that it faces today and in the future. The emergence of new manufacturing technologies, spurred by intense global competition, will lead to new products and processes. New management systems, organizational structures and decision-making methods will also emerge as complements to new products and processes (NRC, 1998). In an attempt to predict future changes and challenges, a number of studies have been undertaken which attempt to clarify the changing nature of manufacturing. For instance, the UK DTi (now BERR) Foresight panel report into manufacturing 2020 (DTi Report, 2000) highlight the importance of manufacturing to the UK economy and describe the changing nature of the modern manufacturing environment as one that “is redefining itself as a provider of lifetime service around a manufactured product”. It goes onto state that the internet is a major enabler and will initiate a paradigm shift in manufacturing. Whilst these statements identify significant developmental opportunities for UK manufacturing sector, they also raise major technical challenges for companies. Therefore, the primary objective of this paper is to identify a comprehensive set of manufacturing challenges facing UK manufacturers. The paper will also identify and propose a number of KDAs aimed at assisting companies meet the challenges. The challenges and KDAs can be used to define a technology strategy or developmental trajectory for the future. The KDAs are not exhaustive but are aimed to give the reader a perspective on the types of KDAs which could be used to enhance UK manufacturing industry. The manufacturing challenges and KDAs are identified as a result of a large Manufacturing Advisory Service survey into 100 UK manufacturing companies, the findings from which are then analysed and compared with a number of key strategic foresight documents so as to develop a robust and comprehensive set of challenges. The initial task facing UK manufacturers must be one of creating a vision of the competitive environment for manufacturing and the nature of the manufacturing enterprise in the future. Owing to the complex nature of modern manufacturing, anticipating every interaction that determines even a single event is impossible however, the ability to at least anticipate future problems is the key to developing solutions to these problems (Adelson and Aroni, 1975). Future opportunities may require that the present plans be changed. Envisioning the future is, therefore, the key to influencing the future (NRC, 1998). Defining the key manufacturing challenges facing UK manufacturing industry requires specific input from a range of business leaders, academics and company representatives at a range of levels throughout a large cross-section

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of manufacturing industry. Also, similar studies undertaken by researchers in other countries are crucial benchmarking systems that allow the authors of this paper to refer to and to compare outputs from this study against these studies. Details of the industrial survey is outlined in the “Methodology” section later in this text. Literature review The UK manufacturing sector faces numerous challenges in order to remain competitive. These challenges range from the traditional concepts of ensuring manufacturing industry copes effectively and efficiently within an increasingly competitive global manufacturing climate whilst balancing the demands of greater customer sophistication with the need to continually develop new and innovative product and process technologies and ensuring the environmental needs of society are met (NRC, 1998). The DTIs “Informan” Report (2000) highlights similar challenges to those of the NRC and include; globalisation, product customisation and environmental sustainability issues as being key future strategic challenges that UK manufacturing industry will need to deal with in order to remain competitive. More recent studies such as those undertaken by Martinez et al. (2010) identify the need for companies to move towards becoming “product service providers” rather than simply product manufacturers and develop a model termed “the architecture of challenges in servitization” as a result of undertaking a comprehensive industrial survey into UK manufacturing companies from which the need for companies to become more product service orientated was identified. A similar analysis undertaken by Baines et al. (2009) identified the need for companies to move towards a “servitization” model of operation where companies need to move away from the simple selling products and to move towards the development and selling of integrated products and associated services which add value in use. The authors identified the need for effective manufacturing technologies and advanced knowledge-based systems in order to support such a shift in operations. Jabar et al. (2011) consider the influence and impact that organisational learning (OL) practices have on the strategic technology alliances on technology transfer and new product development in companies. The study into over 300 manufacturing companies identified that the absorptive capacity, nature and type of alliances developed by the company and, the learning environment present within companies, create a positive impact on a company’s technology transfer capabilities which in turn affects the ability of a company to develop new and innovative products and processes. The authors highlight further the challenges presented and the benefits gained from an effective OL approach in companies. Christopher and Holweg (2011) identify the challenges facing manufacturing industry from a supply chain perspective and identify the need for companies to change their methods of managing supply chains based on their analysis of their supply chain volatility index. Their work identifies the need for supply chains to operate more flexibility rather than being operated upon the basis of systems control which leads to operating rigidities and the inability of supply chains to respond to turbulent manufacturing environments as faced by most manufacturers today. Their work identifies the need for restructuring supply chains as being a major challenge to today’s modern manufacturing environment.

A somewhat outdated but nevertheless important analysis undertaken by the National Research Council, National Academy of Science (NRC, 1998) highlights six grand manufacturing challenges for the 2020 and state that it is the aim of every manufacturing company to achieve: concurrency in all operations; integrate human and technical resources to enhance workforce performance and satisfaction; instantaneously transform information gathered from a vast array of sources into useful knowledge for making effective decisions; reduce production waste and product environmental impact to “near zero”; reconfigure manufacturing enterprises rapidly in response to changing needs and opportunities and, develop innovative manufacturing processes and products with a focus on decreasing dimensional scale. In order to meet these manufacturing challenges, manufacturing enterprises will require new technologies, systems and paradigms that will enable them to enhance their manufacturing capabilities. However, these challenges whilst providing significant guidance to manufacturing industry are by no means the only challenges that are faced by UK manufacturers. Significant political changes have taken place within the UK over many years where the reliance on manufacturing has given way to a reliance on the banking sector and successive governmental drives to transform the face of UK manufacturing towards a more knowledge-based/high-tech industry means that the political landscape and demographic is continually changing with new opportunities and threats continually emerging. This means that new drivers are forcing rapid change and hence what emerges are new technical challenges. Apart from the NRCs visionary challenges identified previously, the EU FutMAN (2006) report provide additional perspectives on the challenges facing industry. The FuTMaN report provides six key recommendations from its strategic study of EU manufacturing industry and include: the need to attract and hold on to able people; continue to build European systems of innovation; develop effective networking systems; the shift required from specialisation to integration in new materials; sustainability needs champions both from manufacturing and from governments; “transition management” may allow for improved governance. Further work identified in the Informan Report on Global Emerging Trends in Manufacturing describes the main outputs from the working session on emerging global manufacturing trends from the Informan 2000 conference held in Cambridge, UK. The conference was initiated and sponsored by the DTI Foresight and Engineering Industries Directorates, in support of the Manufacturing 2020 Foresight programme. The authors of the report identified a series of issues to which manufacturing industry should concentrate upon in order to become or remain competitive in 2020. These were classified as “internal responses” in the report and they were: the development of human resources; use regulations as a positive force; develop intellectual capital/knowledge management; develop agile and dynamic supply chain networks, create innovation at all levels; drive to migrate to higher value-added activities and, develop clear core competencies that will create a barrier to new entrants. Traditionally, lack of capital has been the biggest barrier to entry for new companies. Now, with radical changes to the capital markets, the principle barrier to entry is knowledge. Incumbent companies have to respond to this challenge by setting up new “knowledge” barriers to entry, and continually developing these to provide a sustained advantage (Informan Report, 2000).


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The literature review has provided an outline summary of the typical manufacturing challenges facing manufacturing industry. However, whilst some of the work is recent (Christopher, Jabat, Baines, Martinez, etc.) this work concentrates upon single issues within manufacturing industry (OL, supply chains, etc.). The documentation relating specifically to foresight and industry-wide studies on future manufacturing challenges is by and large dated and provides limited value in identifying the current key drivers and challenges facing the UK manufacturing sector. Therefore, the authors decided to undertake a survey into 100 UK manufacturing companies in order to identify any new challenges which have emerged over the past 10-20 years and also to continue to validate challenges which are still relevant to the sector. Details of the survey are given in the next section. Survey methodology A detailed manufacturing survey was undertaken with UK manufacturing companies during the period 2007 and 2009 and was led by the Manufacturing Advisory Service Wales. A four-person team was established made up from three members of the Manufacturing Advisory Service Wales along with a staff member from Newport Business School. Their aim was to identify the manufacturing challenges that face manufacturing enterprises currently and from this, to identify the KDAs needed to address these challenges. In order to elicit the voice of industry correctly and to triangulate the survey findings, the following research methods were used: . A number of MAS workshop events were held with industrial participants along with university collaboration group meetings featuring key academics with a broad range of manufacturing expertise. These workshops and meetings included discussions on future trends in economics, business practices, environmental concerns and manufacturing issues. . A series of Wales Manufacturing Forum meetings held between key industrial leaders, government managers and academics with a broad range of manufacturing expertise. These meetings included discussions on shaping future manufacturing strategy including visionary analysis and road-mapping exercises. . A three-year comprehensive industrial survey covering a wide range of manufacturing companies throughout UK was conducted by the joint MAS and academic team. Director and managers from 100 manufacturing companies were surveyed. A database of responses to discussions and the manufacturing audits was developed and used in this paper. . Additional information gathered from interviews and documents by leading industrial and academics working in manufacturing was obtained through bodies such as the UK DTi Manufacturing Advisory Service, the EU FutMAN Report (2000), the NRCs Visionary Challenges committee report (NRC, 1998) and the I *PROMS NoE Document on The Grand Challenges facing European Union Companies (I *PROMS, 2006). The survey into identifying the key challenges facing manufacturing companies A survey into a range of manufacturing companies was initiated in 2007 and ran for three years. Funding was provided by the Wales Manufacturing Advisory Service

(MAS) programme. Under the terms of the project, 100 manufacturing companies were targeted, visited and assessed. A four-person team made up of experienced business researchers were recruited to undertake the survey work. The manufacturing companies were identified from their UK Standard Industry Classification codes (SICs) and a range of manufacturing sectors were targeted. Table I shows the number of companies assessed per industrial sector. The table also shows the number of companies by size, which fall into each industrial sector area. The industrial sectors were pre-defined under the terms of funding and were considered to be the high value industrial sectors within the UK. A questionnaire was constructed by the project team to aid in data collection and analysis. Partly quantitative and partly qualitative the questionnaire captured specific information relating to identifying the current and future challenges facing the companies concerned whilst allowing a section for open answers by the respondents so that maximum information could be drawn from each company. The primary aim for the questionnaire was to capture data directly relating to identifying the challenges faced by the manufacturing companies currently and what challenges are likely to emerge over the next ten years. Company directors were also asked to identify some of the KDAs which would be required to enable the companies to meet the challenges identified. The directors were also asked to define their aspirations towards developing their operations, company infrastructure, financial strength, skills base, etc. Owing to the diverse manufacturing sectors covered by the survey and the inherent dynamics of such industries, it was decided that each company would be visited by a research project team member rather than rely purely upon questionnaire feedback since this allowed for a more realistic analysis of the company’s operations. During the visits, the project engineers discussed the questionnaire with the project champions making sure full and clear responses to the questions were received. Also, the research team assessed the company’s manufacturing and business processes spending on average one day at each company observing at first hand the business operations thus allowing the researchers to contextualize the responses of the directors in relation to observations made during the walk through of company operations. This visual assessment allowed a triangulation between observed activities and written responses to add a further level of robustness to the data capture. The researchers also aimed at senior level managers and in most cases the managing directors (especially in SMEs) in order to draw from them their strategic opinions and thoughts on their respective business processes. The questionnaire covered the following quantitative data: . Financial data. Turnover, materials and labour costs, growth profile, operating costs, investment in R þ D, major technological investments over the past five years. . Company profile. Number of employees, direct and indirect staffing ratios. Industrial sectors 1-50 51-150 150-250 Large companies .250 Totals

Aerospace

Automotive

Medical

Electronics

4 1 3 5 13

10 6 8 13 37

3 5 6 3 17

13 8 3 9 33


Table I. The number of companies assessed by industrial sector and size

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The questionnaire captured the following qualitative data: . Business type. Growth profile, customer base, relationships with customers, types of products produced, types of processes employed, labour skills and knowledge base. . Current and future challenges to manufacturing. Current manufacturing problems, restrictions and limitations, future plans for investing in new business opportunities, previous experiences in developing manufacturing strategies, mistakes made, benefits of employing the strategies, worker and management skills requirements, knowledge and experience of business improvement programmes, etc. Future areas which will limit growth, strategic shifts required over the next ten years to maintain performance and achieve growth. . Attitude to developing business. Aspirations to grow and develop company, future company growth strategy (new market sectors to be penetrated, new business systems required to meet anticipated growth, current and future workforce development strategy, succession planning and impact of this on company. . Operational processes. How and in what way had the management style structure and approach changed in order to meet the manufacturing challenges, how effective were the strategies employed? What problems are faced as a result of strategy implementation? . Enabling technologies, systems and paradigms. What current and future manufacturing, control technologies and manufacturing management paradigms are required to overcome/meet the strategic challenges. From the interview feedback the team were able to assess the information and start to establish a coherent assessment process for the data obtained. In this case the project team broke the feedback into two sections namely; manufacturing challenges and key developmental areas. Considering the two sets of characteristics allowed the survey to establish the correlation between the nature of the manufacturing challenges, additionally determining how the KDAs are able to resolve the manufacturing challenges. In the interest of survey quality, 25 percent of the companies visited were visited by two engineers simultaneously. This allowed for the engineers to maintain consistency of data collection and analysis and to develop reciprocal learning arrangement between them. Survey results and analysis Data and results from each company visited was project coded and classified before being entered into a database. This then allowed the engineers to call off database reports based upon the classification developed. The survey team analysed each report from the company identifying common themes, needs and requirements. Using a broad categorisation approach it was possible to cluster characteristics into nine distinct areas which were then identified as manufacturing challenges. No survey questionnaire was left out and all feedback was aligned to one or more of the nine emerging manufacturing challenges. However, when considering the development of the KDAs, the survey team identified a weakness in the studies which seemed to show that whilst most company directors were knowledgeable about what future challenges they faced, they were less familiar with the typical key developmental areas and systems which were needed to enable the manufacturing challenges to be resolved. This was an expected outcome from the survey

and so when it came to the establishment of the KDAs, the information obtained from the focus groups was then used to develop a comprehensive set of KDAs. This then enabled the team to feed back to the company directors on some of the state-of-the-art technologies and systems which had been developed or were being developed thus allowing academia to provide valued inputs to companies wishing to tackle its future challenges. In terms of this paper, the KDAs identified have been extended and developed further through the author’s analysis of literature in the area of emerging manufacturing technologies. The aim is to provide the readership with a comprehensive although not exhaustive set of KDAs capable to being researched further. In summary the industrial survey highlighted that companies in the main were concerned about the increasingly competitive global climate and increased customer sophistication is driving many companies towards developing and implementing new and innovative technologies and systems to meet this new demand profile. The need to consider the environmental issues through “after life” usage, recycling and disposal is also seen as an emerging if not a primary issue at present. The MAS survey generally showed that the more innovative the company is then the more likely it is to have the confidence to respond rapidly to market changes and to have the opinion and vision that manufacturing industry is transforming and not declining (Shapira, 2005) and as such, the quicker industry is to transform then the more likely it is to grow and expand its operational context. The emerging nine manufacturing challenges are highlighted along with the associated KDAs (Table II). Conclusions and future direction of research The identification of the nine manufacturing challenges along with the development of the KDAs is aimed at providing the UK manufacturing industry with a clear a set of strategic drivers to enhance their manufacturing capabilities and move away from the single paradigm approach towards manufacturing performance improvement which currently surrounds manufacturing sustainability issues. The development of a more holistic methodology/framework based upon the simultaneous development of advanced manufacturing technologies and the integration of robust manufacturing management paradigms can be considered an important issue if UK companies are to survive within the global marketplace. However, before the development of an effective framework is undertaken, further work is required in extending the KDAs as well as undertaking further detailed work in aligning the KDAs to the manufacturing challenges so that the KDAs and the resulting implementation framework si capable of delivering realistic improvement results for companies. Whilst the development of a specific manufacturing improvement framework will obviously aid in the development of the knowledge-driven culture, it cannot be considered a panacea and further work has to be done in order to ensure that the KDAs are aligned with the manufacturing challenges and are driven forward in a robust and well develop manufacturing implementation framework and later, diffused throughout companies. Therefore, the adoption of a KDA improvement framework and the associated rate of diffusion of such a framework into manufacturing companies require further analysis and development (Ramasesh et al., 2001). Further work aimed at developing a more detailed and robust framework is also required as does the need to develop more detailed operational models capable


Table II.

The drive is to produce timely, affordable, one-of-a-kind or niche products which can be quickly produced to meet specific customer requirements (Zucchella and Palamara, 2006). In order to achieve this however, there is a need to develop design and product realization systems which enable design to manufacture lead time reduction to take place through time compression and the achievement of adaptable and reconfigurable products that meet customer requirements (NRC, 1998). In order to achieve rapid reconfigurability however, there is a need for the development of advanced business intelligence capture for the development of agile production plants and the need for the development of “real-time” data systems seamlessly integrating with business processes and adjusting the company’s focus on the market needs in an agile manner (Va´zquez-Bustelo et al., 2007). In support of such approaches, companies will need to consider the development of more dynamically integrated manufacturing systems (Anosike and Zhang, 2006) and develop and implement collaborative software and technology systems (DTi Report, 2000) (I *PROMS, 2006) in order to support the systems integration effectively Challenge 2: Develop, enhance and extend human In order to develop and enhance human competencies, companies should consider the development competencies, knowledge and technical capabilities within of management and capitalisation of operational knowledge (Koh and Tan, 2006) through effective companies in order to create a shift away from Information Systems Design and Integration (Helo, 2006) and correctly developed competency “manufacturing only” capabilities towards the management systems through a resource based perspective (Trott et al., 2009). The development of manufacture of high value added products and services to manufacturing systems modeling and optimisation methodologies Anosike and Zhang (2006) will a global market enable companies to operate in more complex manufacturing environments more effectively as will the development of technology centres and R þ D cells such as techniums an innovation centres. Developing centres of excellence and knowledge bases which add high level value to products and services the company produces as outline in FutMAN Report (2002) is critical to company success Challenge 3: Develop responsive and precise knowledge The development of methods towards developing worker empowerment through the development of management and business intelligence systems in order to effective educational methods (Koh and Tan, 2006) is seen as critical to this challenge. This can be facilitate quicker and more accurate decision making achieved through the development of a resource-based view of operations management (Barney et al., within companies 2001) as well as the development of knowledge management, knowledge engineering and organizational learning (I *PROMS, 2006) and competence management (FutMAN Report, 2002) approaches and methodologies Through the development of synthesis and architecture technologies for converting information into desired knowledge (I *PROMS, 2006) and advanced intelligent decision systems (Lau et al., 2004) companies will be able to facilitate quicker and more responsive decision making whilst advanced industrial information systems (Gottschalk, 2006) and expert knowledge systems (Rao and Miller, 2004) will assist in improving the accuracy of decision making in given industrial settings and scenarios (continued)

Key developmental areas

150

Challenge 1: Achieve rapid and consistent delivery of new products into the marketplace by developing responsive design and engineering capabilities in companies based around new and sophisticated manufacturing technologies and techniques

Manufacturing challenges

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Key developmental areas

The drive for developing and using more energy efficient low consumption manufacturing equipment and eco-manufacturing systems (Zhu and Liu, 2010) will achieve reductions in energy consumption and usages thus delivering improvements in bottom line production costs The development of new and modified processes that must be able to produce zero waste and which will consume the minimum amount of energy and to do both economically will be the driver for the future of manufacturing. This includes the need to eliminate scrap due to poor quality and process inefficiencies (I *PROMS, 2006) Challenge 5: Achieve rapid enterprise reconfiguration The achievement of adaptable and reconfigurable manufacturing processes and systems through through being able to rapidly reconfigure a company’s the use of specialist reconfigurability algorithms ( John et al., 2009) will enable rapid manufacturing manufacturing capabilities as well as its supply chain and systems reconfiguration at low cost whilst information sharing in supply chains will enable supply logistics systems chain systems to become more responsive and suffer minimal demand amplification, improve supply chain security and confidentiality, etc. (Williams et al., 2008). The development of rapid reconfigurable supply chain systems through re-establishing and developing local and established long supply chains to respond immediately on changes to internal manufacturing demands (Pham et al., 2008) is also important for the future Opportunities also exist to investigate the social and legal aspects of cooperation in supply chains (Buxmann et al., 2008) in order to establish relationships and power systems that exist in supply chain echelons Challenge 6: Develop innovative products, processes and Through improving the management and development of highly customized products (Mo et al., services by driving down product lifecycle times and 2008) through the development of integrated product and service management systems (I *PROMS, continuously developing and enhancing the new product 2006) will reduce NPD/I lead times and achieve greater parts rationalisation. Likewise, the development of the “intelligent product” (Thomas and Grabot, 2006) will see opportunities for development and introduction systems (NPD/I) in companies to exploit new product niche areas and open up new NPD/I areas and will impact on companies maintenance and end of life use methods From a product support perspective, the development of e-logistics systems (Wang and Lalwani, 2007) and inventory control methods for the development of responsive and competitive companies. Hsiao et al. (2010) will be critical for future development as will be increasing product and process systems reliability and maintenance (Liyanage, 2007) Challenge 7: Develop closer and more meaningful Through the development of collaborative production process design environments (Austin et al., collaborations between universities, colleges and industry 2007) and in the development of technological and innovation bases for manufacturing processes including the development of improved collaborative (Economic Renewal, 2010) it will be possible to develop new and innovative collaborative design design, research and manufacturing environments environments (continued)

Challenge 4: Minimise environmental damage and operate towards energy neutral manufacturing environments including the development of highly responsive yet energy efficient local supply chains and logistics systems



Table II.

Challenge 9: Develop and enhance digital networks, systems and technologies in order to enhance the digital economy

The development of new manufacturing management paradigms such as the fit manufacturing approach will aim to meet the manufacturing challenges of the future (Thomas and Pham, 2004). The fit manufacturing approach will aim at integrating the traditional concepts of lean, agility and sustainability to develop a company’s ability to survive and prosper in a competitive manner (Pham et al., 2008). Likewise, the development of change management and resilience paradigms including improving the communication between the tactical (sales and operation planning) and the operational (execution) level of POM. Zucchella and Palamara (2006) will enhance manufacturing capabilities as will developing new approaches for dealing with uncertainty (demand, resource availability, etc.) (Childerhouse and Towill, 2004) in the supply chain The development of Agile Virtual Enterprises (Sarkis et al., 2007) along with Intelligent Quality Systems (Olsen and Funk, 2009) will develop the basis for the technologies and management approaches to ensure products and processes achieve repeatability high quality and reliability (Fulton and Hon, 2010) and move towards the individualised customisation and manufacturing of products (Mo et al., 2008) A key driver here will be to investigate how new digital information technologies could lead to totally new production management methods and practices ( Jiao et al., 2007). Also, the development of digitally connected supply chains and virtual enterprises (Butner, 2010) will lead to more rapid system reconfiguration and product development Enhanced learning models and advanced pedagogic systems created through digital product manuals (Setchi and Lagos, 2008) will lead to improved knowledge management systems and more rapid and accurate maintenance routines and functions

Challenge 8: Seek to develop new manufacturing management paradigms so as to create a more flexible, responsive and competitive manufacturing organisations that are able to continuously evolve and adapt to change and to develop effective change management and leadership methods to drive such systems

Table II. Key developmental areas

152


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of delivering the framework into the infrastructure and fabric of individual companies. It is here that the development of detailed performance enhancing models transcends the SME/large company argument in that through modifying the framework for given situations and company constraints, it is possible to deploy the framework approach to various companies regardless of their size, shape and organisational characteristics. Refinement and the subsequent validation of the enhanced framework will necessitate applying the framework into many more test-bed companies. The results of such a process will inform any changes required to ensure the framework (and the devolved models which will emanate from the framework) achieves optimal effectiveness in different types of company. Therefore, the test-bed companies should be selected from range of different manufacturing sectors with different resource capabilities to provide the best opportunity to develop and enhance its capabilities. Likewise, the current survey base of 100 manufacturing companies, whilst providing a suitable knowledge base to develop a number of generic findings, will always benefit from a greater survey sample size. By increasing the sample range, more specific and accurate conclusions and further characterisation can be developed culminating in the possibility of the emergence of further challenges. At a more detailed level however, future research should concentrate upon a number of key issues. These would include: Investigating and defining the boundary conditions that surround systems integration in an attempt to identify if possible, the optimal level of systems integration necessary to achieve improved systems performance (integration between manufacturing technologies, associated control systems and the development of specific manufacturing management tools an strategies) whilst understanding the deleterious effects brought on by excessive systems integration which leads to reduced flexibility and responsiveness (organisational rigidities, departmental inflexibility, etc.). Investigating the core competency requirements of the factory of the future and to specifically concentrate upon defining the new core competencies required to manage and extend the framework so that companies go beyond lean and achieve new levels of improved business performance. This will include analysing technological, managerial and manufacturing competencies which in turn will define a new skills and knowledge based agenda for universities and colleges in the future. Greater emphasis and research needs to be conducted into achieving efficient and effective systems reconfigurability and adaptability to meet the challenges. Fitness to meet the various emerging and changing demands is therefore a key performance driver and so being able to characterise the main features which will achieve rapid systems reconfiguration is key to success. Likewise, being able to mathematically model the decision points which subsequently trigger the reconfiguration stage within a system is highly important for future development. References Adelson, M. and Aroni, S. (1975), “Differential images of the future”, in Linstone, H. and Turoff, M. (Eds), The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, pp. 433-62. Anosike, A.I. and Zhang, D.Z. (2006), “Dynamic reconfiguration and simulation of manufacturing systems using agents”, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 435-47.


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