Exploring the phenomenon of company-specific production systems: one-best-way or own-best-way?

Abstract

This explorative study investigates the phenomenon of the company-specific production system (XPS). It has been a strong and recent trend across many manufacturing industries to develop and deploy such a corporate improvement programme. Five propositions regarding the uniqueness of XPSs are derived from universalistic versus contingent perspectives on improvement programmes. The main XPS principles of 30 renowned multinationals are analysed for similarities and differences. In conclusion, XPSs largely represent variants of the same in content. They represent an own-best-way approach to the one-best-way paradigm. Even though a tight relationship to the Toyota Production System (TPS) and lean production is established, the findings raise a red flag that XPSs might suffer under a too rigid, path-dependent development process from what has become an overly technical understanding of the TPS. This study also questions whether modern manufacturers have sufficiently integrated other essential elements of modern operations such as the use of ERP, automation and real-time response technologies in their XPSs. These findings have direct implications for practitioners and provide interesting opportunities for further research.

Keywords:

• company-specific production systems
• global manufacturing
• lean manufacturing
• Toyota production system
• continuous improvement

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the partial financial support granted from the research project CRI Norman at SINTEF Technology and Society, Trondheim, Norway. Research assistant Alexander Welland deserves a special thank you for the initial mapping of XPSs. I also want to acknowledge the constructive discussions with colleagues at SINTEF, NTNU and Georgetown University, in addition to the comments from three anonymous reviewers. Last–but not least–I am thankful for the research willingness of the fifteen participating multinational companies.

Notes

Notes

1. Source: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/principle.

2. The ‘Company-specific production systems (XPS) and their role in future international manufacturing’ workshop, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway, 31 May 2011.