مطالعه مقایسه ای پیاده سازی استراتژی های تولید در تایلند و شرکت های تولید خودرو هند

Companies must develop and maintain a high degree of coherence among competitive priorities, order-winning criteria, and improvement activities due to the competitive market and customer pressures. This paper presents findings of an empirical survey on manufacturing strategies implementation in new industrialized countries (NICs). Data were obtained from 68 and 54 automotive manufacturing companies in India and Thailand with 21.7% and 21.8% response rates, respectively, and analyzed through the inferential statistics. The results indicate that the focused competitive priorities of companies in both countries are improving product and process-related quality and on-time delivery. In addition, this study found that companies are trying to enhance the competitive priorities by implementing one of two infrastructural manufacturing strategies from among total quality management (TOM), just-in-time (JIT) production, statistical process control (SPC), and material requirements planning (MRP). Finally, conformance quality and manufacturing efficiency are considered the most important order-winning criteria in this industry in both countries.

Manufacturing companies are under increasingly diverse and mounting pressure due to more sophisticated markets, changing customer choice, and global competition. With globalization broadening the marketplace and increasing competition, customers are placing greater demands on manufacturers to increase quality and flexibility while maintaining or decreasing costs (Dangayach and Deshmukh 2003). Manufacturing is no more concentrated in one country,but rather spread over distant locations across the globe. In such a competitive scenario, companies have to search for new processes, materials, suppliers/vendors, manufacturing facilities locations, and delivery channels for their products and services at a competitive price.Advances in computer and communications technologies have contributed to an explosive growth in automated approaches for the implementation of manufacturing strategies within companies. The advanced/new manufacturing technologies have harnessed a wide range of benefits, including reduced costs, increased productivity, greater flexibility, and higher quality, enabling companies to improve their competitive position. By adopting an appropriate manufacturing strategy, companies can achieve world-class manufacturing status and compete effectively in global markets. This paper presents f'mdings of an empirical survey on the implementation of manufacturing strategies in two developing countries--India and Thailand.

Manufacturing companies formulate strategies to develop manufacturing capabilities and therefore to increase their competitiveness in the marketplace.The study has highlighted a number of interesting aspects of manufacturing function and strategy. A few conclusions are encouraging.First, economic reforms and global competition have given Indian and Thai automotive sector companies an opportunity to look at the strategic role of manufacturing. Both countries are at the developing economy stage and are implementing various reforms to meet the global challenge in manufacturing.This has resulted in Indian companies giving high priority to quality management, as depicted by Table 8, while the counterparts of the study--Thai companies--are emphasizing delivery aspects.The study indicates that competitive priorities of companies of both countries are focused on improving product and process quality and on delivering products on time. However, competitive advantage can be obtained through fundamental changes in the way manufacturing is organized. Indian and Thai companies are giving less importance to flexibility, whereas firms of other industrialized countries (USA,Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc.) are giving priority to flexibility (Kim and Arnold 1996). Quality is the most important competitive priority for both Indian and Thai companies because most of the companies are engaged in the ISO certification process. ISO 9000 is synonymous with quality for Indian and Thai automotive companies. Today, about 8,000 companies in India and 5,200 companies in Thailand have obtained the certification. The competition from multinationals has made Indian companies quality conscious. Traditional quality control (corrective action) is now moving to preventive measures, reflected in wide adoption of TQM practices. Companies in both countries perceive that survival of manufacturing is dependent on quality of design and quality of manufacturing. However, it is important to note that companies should move from focusing on traditional (product quality) to contemporary (design and manufacturing process flexibility) measures to sustain themselves in the global markets, especially in the automotive industry. Second, out of 10 top improvement activities for both Indian and Thai automotive companies, six are used for simplification of systems, that is, total quality management (TQM), management training (MT),workforce involvement (WI), customer relations(CR), just-in-time (JIT), employee empowerment (EE), statistical process control (SPC), and officeautomation (OA). It seems that these companies are trying to compete by investing more in human resource development, changing the organizational culture, and enhancing product quality, which are well accepted as infrastructural issues in manufacturing strategy literature (Hayes and Wheelwright 1984; Hill 1987). But to compete globally, they should invest more in hardware-based improvement activities such as CAD, CNC, and so on; product and process innovation; and other structural issues like information technology. Although India has an excellent scientific and technological development infrastructure, it has neglected the development of technological capabilities to exploit the emerging global opportunities (Chandra and Sastry 1998). Indian companies have to innovate and commercialize their innovation through timely and cost-effective systems and through building up of systems for managing global technological changes.Third, this study also shows that only stand-alone technologies such as CAD/CNC attracted a higher rate of adoption in both the Indian and Thai automotive industries. This may be a result of an intention to achieve competitive advantages and respond to customer needs and expectations (that is, quality, cost, flexibility). It is further observed that Thai automotive manufacturers investing more in CNC as compared with their Indian counterparts. Because of the entry-mode regulations in supporting foreign direct investments (FDI), especially in the automotive industry in Thailand, such technologies (structural issues) could be transferred more easily and effectively. Therefore, issues in international technology transfers/transactions are important in adoption of manufacturing strategy (structural issues or object-embodies).Finally, this study has intended to map the companies under survey (from two newly industrialized countries) in various manufacturing strategy-related issues based on the frameworks describing in the literature. The study has highlighted a number of interesting aspects of manufacturing function and strategy including: • Competitive priorities, • Investment in improvement activities, and • Order winners. It is also interesting to note that newly industrialized countries such as India and Thailand are following similar trends as developed countries. Now,the manufacturing unit is one of the important bases by which to assess a country's competitiveness. It seems to be that, in the present global scenario, the walls between east, west, north, and south are falling gradually. Therefore, issues related to international manufacturing strategies are also important for both local and multinational companies.