Strategic Manufacturing Management Questions and Answers :: Strategic Manufacturing Management Essays

Question 1: Hayes and Wheelright (1984) and Mintzberg (1987) spoke of strategy as a pattern of decisions. What do they mean by this? (5 Marks) Strategy is the pattern of decisions determining the organization’s objectives, purposes, or goals. It outlines the principal policies and plans for achieving those goals, and clearly defines the range of businesses the organization has to pursue. Strategy as a pattern of decisions also highlights the nature of human and economic organization it intends to be, and the nature of the economic and noneconomic contribution it intends to make towards its stakeholders, mainly, the shareholders, customers, employees, and communities[1]. Mintzberg (1987), characterizing ten ‘schools of thought’ in his consideration of strategy, has defined strategy as a pattern, a plan, a ploy, a position, and a perspective[2]. He has further classified different strategy making processes, specifying that a â€Å"realised strategy† is â€Å"emergent† and â€Å"deliberate† as shown in Figure 1-1. Moreover, Mintzberg discusses the difference between strategic thinking and strategic planning, highlighting that planning involves analysis and thinking involves synthesis, and the outcome of strategic thinking is an integrated perspective[3]. For strategies to be ploys or plans, they need to follow a specific stream of actions. Plans or ploys are â€Å"intended strategy† which are realized through patterns, as pointed out by Mintzberg. Figure 1-1 "Deliberate" and "emergent" strategy forming "realized" strategy[2] According to Hayes and Wheelright (1984) an implementation of strategy requires a structured integrative pattern of mutually supported decisions made over a period of time. Five characteristics that make up strategy are time, concentration of effort, impact, pattern of decision, and pervasiveness as stated by Hayes and Wheelwright. They also point out that effective operation strategies need to be consistent and contribute to competitive advantage. Consistency should prevail between operations strategy and business strategy, between operations strategy and the other functional strategies, and within different decision areas of operations strategy. In order to be able to positively contribute towards competitive advantage, the strategy should enable operations to set priorities right to enhance competitive advantage, clearly state the operations strategy for the rest of the organization to easily comprehend, accentuate opportunities where operations can complement business strategy, a nd ensure operating capabilities that may be required in the future. Hayes and Wheelwright (1984) have categorized different types of organizations based on their attitude towards operations in a four stage model. The four stages, as shown in table below are, Internally Neutral, Externally Neutral, Internally Supportive, and Externally Supportive, in the order[2].