درک کارکنان بخش تولید از استراتژی تولید در SMME

Today's global competitiveness urges SMMEs to pay attention to their MS process. The purpose of this case study at a Swedish SMME, mainly conducted through interviews with production-related staff: staff with direct connection to everyday production work, is to explore their perception of the MS content. The study shows that communication is the main obstacle for production-related staff's perception of the MS. Their perception is diverse and based on a multitude of factors, such as employment period, organizational belonging, and the employees’ own interest. Several problem areas are identified and need to be investigated

During the last few decades the situation for manufacturing companies has changed dramatically due to increased global competitiveness. Swedish Small and Medium-sized Manufacturing Enterprises (SMMEs) have a significant impact on the country’s economy [1-2] while facing strong competition from developing countries. Therefore, there is a need for these companies to develop their strategic capabilities. The need for companies to focus on manufacturing from a strategic perspective is emphasized in the seminal work by Skinner [3]. This focus on Manufacturing Strategy (MS) is essential for manufacturing companies to remain competitive [4]. However, the MS literature is underdeveloped, limited, and under considerable debate [4-5]. Further, 91% of the research publications between the years 1969 and 2001 were focused on the content aspects [4] hence, a very small part is concerned with the MS process. The process consists of formulation and implementation [6], where implementation is ‘less structured and more behaviorally oriented’ [7, p. 121].Barnes [5] calls for a broader analysis including considerations on both the internal and the external contexts, stressing the individual, cultural, and political factors.Research on the relevance of MS to SMMEs has been limited [4], [8] and needs to be focused further due to these companies’ importance for the economy. Findings from research on larger companies are not always applicable to SMMEs’ special characteristics: closeness between management and employees due to fewer hierarchical levels [4], [8]; a reactive fire-fighting mentality [8]; and concentration and low formalization of the decision processes where decisions often are based on intuition and personal experience [9]. Typical learning processes within small firms are mainly based on learning by doing [9].The people within the organization have an importantrole when it comes to implementation; lower levels of the organization need to be involved [7]. People, who execute the decisions that are formulated in the MS, are in this paper referred to as production-related staff: staff with direct connection to everyday production work, e.g.operators, team leaders, production technicians, and warehouse personnel. Focusing on implementation implies a need to look into how people perceive MS, and how it affects their daily work. The purpose of this case study is therefore to focus on an area within the MS implementation process which is quite unexplored within the literature: how the employees perceive the MS content. To address this it would be beneficial to incorporate other fields, such as the ones related to learning organizations and knowledge management, within the frame of the MS literature. We assume that learning organizations are enablers for bringing the MS out in the organization.

The study shows that within the company, despite management’s attempts to use a variety of communication channels, communication is the main obstacle to the production-related staff’s perception of MS. It is also evident that in a small company, where work with MS is unfocused, there is a risk of employees perceiving the decisions as short-term solutions; as a fire-fighting mentality where there is no long-term planning. In such organizational settings it is impossible to try to communicate a strategy. MS perception needs to depend on other parameters than employment period, organizational belonging, and the employee’s own nterest in finding information.The problem areas identified need to be investigated further in order to assess how common they are.Marucheck’s et al.’s [7] conclusions from 1990 are stillvalid; future research needs to focus on the impact corporate culture and managerial styles have on the perception of MS. There seems to be a need to direct different types of information toward different parts of the organization, e.g. differ between MTO and MTS operators. However, this needs to be investigated further and can be framed as defining the desirable perception of MS for production-related staff.