Search

This paper empirically explores the organizational processes at the onset of disruptions and the factors that determine different configurations of responses. It examines how processes of response, both before and in the aftermath of a disruption, support the building and development of organizational resilience. Using case study data from three U.K. based organizations, this paper makes the following three contributions. First, it identifies the common elements involved in decision making at the onset of a disruption, and explains the iterative stages and processes that led to the development of resilience. It explains the criticality and relationships between the elements of detection, activation, and response. Second, this paper explains why responses vary from one situation to another, by identifying two dimensions that determine the configurations of organizational resilience, namely Preparedness and Adaption. Third, this paper presents the resilience configurations matrix that gives rise to and establishes four distinct types of organizational configurations, which are Process Based, Resourceful, At High Risk, and Resilience Focused. This paper concludes by discussing the implications for theory and practice of resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agility has been widely accepted in manufacturing industry as a new competitive concept. However, how to develop a manufacturing strategy based around agility is not fully understood. This paper proposes a framework for the implementation of agility as a manufacturing strategy and describes the development and analysis of a numerical taxonomy of agility strategies using the framework. The taxonomy was developed with cluster analysis based on the relative importance attached to seven agility capabilities by a number of U.K. manufacturing companies. Three distinct clusters of strategy groups were observed across the industry studied: Quick, Responsive and Proactive Players. Quick Players are oriented towards a strong customer focus and quickness. They do not emphasize flexibility and responsiveness to changes and they give low priority to proactiveness and partnership. Responsive Players are preoccupied with flexibility and responsiveness to changes. They do not emphasize proactiveness and partnerships and they attach low importance to quickness. Proactive Players are characterized by high priorities on proactiveness and customer focus, high values attached to all capabilities, and high importance given to partnerships. The underlying dimensions of agile capabilities along which the three strategy groups differ were investigated based on factor analysis and canonical discriminant analysis. Changes/uncertainties in the business environment experienced by members of different strategic groups were compared, and ‘manufacturing strategy choices,’ in terms of manufacturing practices for achieving agility, employed by members of different strategic groups were studied. Business characteristics and typical cases for each strategy group were investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliability improvement is the conceptual norm but has not been achieved by all sectors of industry. The U.K. aerospace industry is one that has aspired to make the transition from a culture of reliability demonstration to enhancement. This paper presents action research that examines the challenges facing this industry. A statistical model is developed to help measure the likely impact of failure modes on operational performance, hence providing a basis for managing the enhancement process. The model, which has general applicability to other product development processes, is stated and justified. The industrial interventions are described and an analysis of findings is presented. The proposed model is better than traditional approaches because it provides a systematic process to capture and integrate data from different sources to estimate reliability by directly measuring the engineering improvement achieved through product design and development. The estimates can be used to inform a traceable coherent argument about the level and growth in reliability to management and the customer as well as to provide insight into the impact of alternative engineering modifications to the design team. The modeling process has contributed to the partial transition to reliability enhancement of a consortium of companies who have changed their standard operating procedures to reflect the lessons learned from the research intervention. The insights gained contribute to an understanding of how the U.K. aerospace industry is changing its management of reliability enhancement in design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]