Managing international manufacturing at plant and plant network levels – insights from five case studies

Abstract

In this study, we develop understanding of management of international manufacturing by a combined analysis of manufacturing firms’ plant networks and roles of individual plants within them. We elaborate the framework of Ferdows (1989) at plant and network levels by analyzing data collected from five plant networks of global manufacturing companies and propose an enhanced framework consisting of four main role types with eleven plant roles, which have implications on the network level. The findings give interesting and novel insights into management of international manufacturing; we conclude that plant roles are more complex than conventionally considered and understanding of international manufacturing requires elaborated analysis at both plant and network levels.

KEYWORDS:

• International manufacturing network
• plant roles
• case study

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 18th International Annual EurOMA Conference (Cambridge, UK, 3–6 July 2011). The authors would like to thank the participants for their contribution and helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We perceive international manufacturing networks (IMNs) as an aggregation of intra-firm plants/factories located in different places (Rudberg and Olhager 2003; Shi and Gregory 1998). This is different from for example Feldmann et al. (2009) who define manufacturing networks as the plant or plants of a manufacturing firm and the relationships with external suppliers (see also Cheng and Johansen (2014); Hayes et al. (2005); Nassimbeni and Sartor (2005)). In the context of this research, we focus on intra-firm manufacturing networks.

2 This is less than the number of plants in the analysis because some Plant Managers served dual roles in their organization. In such cases, the interviews addressed each plant or plant-level and firm-level issues separately.

3 We thank the anonymous reviewer for pointing out this connection.

Additional information

Funding

Virpi Turkulainen acknowledges funding from the Academy of Finland, The Federation of Finnish Technology Industries, Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, and the Fulbright Association.

Notes on contributors

Marja Blomqvist

Marja Blomqvist (M.Sc, Lic. Tech) is a consultant and trainer at QDC Business Engineering Oy as well as a Doctoral Candidate at Aalto University. Her research interests are in the area of operations strategy, manufacturing networks and operations improvement. Her research has been presented in Euroma, Nofoma, and CiM conferences.

Virpi Turkulainen

Dr. Virpi Turkulainen is an Associate Professor in Management at University College Dublin, School of Business. Her research interests are in the areas of organization design, organizational integration, and operations strategy. She has published her work for example in Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, and Journal of Supply Chain Management.