The large Spanish industrial company: strategies of the most competitive factories

Abstract

The growing role played by production as a key strategic element for competitive success is widely recognised. Many companies have obtained sustainable competitive advantages and, consequently, superior results, due to the manufacturing excellence or superiority obtained through the development of resources and capabilities in this area and thus, through the implementation of certain manufacturing objectives and policies. The work reported is part of a broader research programme which has enabled us to ascertain the present situation of Spanish industrial companies in the field of production strategic management. It uses a database of the manufacturing strategies of a sample of 114 factories belonging to large companies in Spain. Specifically, the aim of this paper is to verify, for the Spanish case, the hypothesis that there exist manufacturing objectives and policies which are applied in a general way in the industrial companies which are most competitive in manufacturing. For this purpose we have distinguished the factories with strengths or advantages in manufacturing in relation to their best competitor (for the manufacturing priorities taken as a whole, as well as for each of them considered individually), from those factories which are not competitive in this area. Using the discriminant analysis technique and taking 1994 as a reference, the manufacturing objectives and policies followed in the past (1992–1993) and those foreseen for the future (1995–1999) which enable us to differentiate the companies that are competitive in manufacturing from those which are not, have been recorded. In this way the manufacturing strategies of the large Spanish companies which are most competitive in this area have been identified, as opposed to the least competitive ones.