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Operations

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Submitted By deepthi711
Words 7953
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Competing Through
Manufacturing

by Steven C. Wheelwright and Robert H. Hayes

Harvard Business Review
Reprint 85117

HBR

J A N U A RY– F E B R U A RY 1 9 8 5

Competing Through Manufacturing by Steven C. Wheelwright and Robert H. Hayes

M

anufacturing companies, particularly those in the United States, are today facing intensified competition. For many, it is a case of simple survival. What makes this challenge so difficult is that the “secret weapon” of their fiercest competitors is based not so much on better product design, marketing ingenuity, or financial strength as on something much harder to duplicate: superior overall manufacturing capability. For a long time, however, many of these companies have systematically neglected their manufacturing organizations.
Now, as the cost of that neglect grows ever clearer, they are not finding it easy to rebuild their lost excellence in production.

In most of these companies, the bulk of their labor force and assets are tied to the manufacturing function. The attitudes, expectations, and traditions that have developed over time in and around that function will be difficult to change. Companies cannot atone for years of neglect simply by throwing large chunks of investment dollars at the problem. Indeed, it normally takes several years of disciplined effort to transform manufacturing weakness into strength. In fact, it can take several years for a company to break the habit of “working around” the limitations of a manufacturing operation and to look on it as a source of competitive advantage.
In practice, of course, the challenge for managers is

The past several years have witnessed a growing awareness among American managers of the central importance to competitive success of first-rate competence in the work of production. At the top of many corporate agendas now rests
the

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