Manufacturing Strategies’ Formulations: Lessons Learned from the Surveys

Abstract

The research describes how manufacturing strategies are formulated.  The study is supported by the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) and Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion (OSMEP).  This study collects top executives’ past viewpoints through a survey which contains six competitive priorities (i.e., cost, customer-focus, delivery, flexibility, know-how, and quality). These priorities are further separated into 31 manufacturing strategies. For an example, the results show that the delivery priority is the most importance. Furthermore, when formulating the fast-delivery strategy, a manufacturer should at least consider: (1) quality-related strategies on low-defect-rate, reliability, product-performance, certification, and environmental aspects, (2) related customer-focus strategies on measurement of satisfaction, product support, and customer information, and etc. Finally, this research extends past studies on competitive priorities and manufacturing strategies.