Manufacturing strategy, the business environment, and operations performance in small low-tech firms

Abstract

This paper reports on a ten-year study of ten manufacturing companies in New Zealand. Over the period the firms endured a turbulent environment where they were subject to large changes in exchange rate, and some faced forced changes in products, and markets as a result of changes in ownership and government policy. The paper examines the stability of manufacturing strategies in such an environment, the emphasis placed on improvement initiatives and what impact these decisions had on manufacturing performance. The study uses a multi-case, longitudinal approach. It found the strategy configurations were not stable and many firms moved towards a price-based configuration, contrary to other literature. The more successful firms put greater investments into infrastructural categories of their operations strategy in accordance with the resource-based view. Operations performance indicators showed some improvement on manufacturing costs but other indicators showed no real pattern.