Balancing technological, organizational, and human aspects in manufacturing development

Abstract

AbstractThis article, which is based on three case studies, operationalizes and tests the widely quoted notion (and assumption) that balancing technological, organizational, and human aspects is important to the success of manufacturing development. As such, this article is also a test of a framework inspired by manufacturing strategy to opertionalize the intuitively sound concept of “balance” applied to manufacturing lead time reduction. The results in all three cases showed considerable improvements in reducing lead times but, as a consequence of the limited variation in success, few conclusions concerning the balance of aspects could be drawn. It is concluded that the analytical framework was useful with respect to describing and analyzing the balance between technological, organizational, and human aspects, in terms of an “amount” relationship. However, the data from the shop floor indicated that reaching a better understanding of the interdisciplinary features of the redesigns would require a more process‐oriented framework covering leading actors, participation, change organization, etc. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.