High-tech Manufacturing Company Research Articles

An efficient solution method to design the cost-minimizing platform portfolio

To offer a wide product variety to customers in a cost-efficient way, companies have introduced platforms, defined as a base from which different products can be derived. We consider a product portfolio, consisting of a set of end products, where each product has a set of attributes (features), which can have different levels requested by the customers. We present a model to support companies in designing the cost-minimizing platform portfolio, consisting of a set of platforms, from which these products can be derived. Each platform has a set of technical design parameters, which can have different levels. The required parameter levels in the platform’s design depend on the attribute needs of the products derived from the platform. Our model gives guidance to what extent the platforms should be under-designed, over-designed or the same with regard to the products (and its attribute levels) derived from them. The model quantifies the impact of these platform portfolio decisions on the relevant operational costs. Given the complexity of this problem for large-scale instances, we develop two fathoming rules to improve computational efficiency. These fathoming rules can be used in different solution algorithms. We illustrate their applicability in a branch-and-bound, simulated annealing and genetic algorithm. We demonstrate the value of our model and solution method with a practical case of a high-tech screen manufacturing company, that wants to design the cost-minimizing platform portfolio from which their product portfolio can be derived.

Determining an action plan for manufacturing system improvement: a case study

This paper follows the paper ‘Determining an action plan for manufacturing system improvement: the theory’ [Nicholds and Mo, (2013), Int. J. Agile Systems and Management, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp.324–344] and describes a case study for the production of an action list for improvement in a manufacturing environment. In order to reduce the waste time, it is necessary to provide measurement feedback to close the corrective action loop. The prioritisation or ranking of the observed waste time types is performed using a benefit risk analysis. A hybrid decision support method based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to rank the shop floor time elements in terms of their importance in meeting a company objective. The case study uses an example from a high-tech manufacturing company looking to improve the accuracy and consistency of data collected from jobs released to the shop floor as a basis for improved quoting and feedback on the level of success of improvement efforts.

A morphological analysis-based creativity approach to identify and develop ideas for BMI: a case study of a high-tech manufacturing company

Practice has shown that new businesses have succeeded in changing the structure of market sectors and opening positions of power through business model innovation. The reasons have been many, but include new technological possibilities, innovative products, changes in the supply chain management, optimised cost structures and unique resources. Regarding entrepreneurship and innovation management, it has become of interest to learn how such potentials can be unlocked and implemented using business model innovations. Here, the development of ideas plays an important role as it usually the first stage of each innovation and utilisation process. However, to date, research in the field of business models has not sufficiently answered the question. While this phase of development is assigned great significance, methodological support regarding existing procedures and process models have not, however, been given. Thus, the subject of this paper is the development of a method of systematically generating business model ideas based on morphological thinking. This includes guaranteeing consistency of the ideas developed as well as structured selection. The method was applied within a high-tech company.

A Multilevel Model Linking Emotional Labor and Employee Creativity

Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this research built and tested a multilevel moderated mediation model linking emotional labor (surface and deep acting) to employee creativity using survey data from a major high-tech manufacturing company in China that was structured into work teams. We found a positive relationship between surface acting and psychological detachment, which, in turn, was negatively related to creativity. Additionally, deep acting was positively related to psychological attachment, which had a positive association to creativity. Further, team creative efficacy moderated the relationships that psychological detachment and psychological attachment both had with creativity; these relationships were stronger when team creative efficacy was high. This yielded moderated mediation effects where team creative efficacy moderated the mediated effects of surface and deep acting on creativity through psychological detachment and attachment respectively. These findings shed new light on the role of emotional labor and work team context in shaping employee creativity.

The Effectiveness of Public Venture Capital in Supporting the Investments of European Young High-Tech Companies

This work studies the extent to which the investments of young high-tech companies in Europe are supported by public venture capital (PVC) financing. We estimate an investment equation derived from a sales accelerator model, and benchmark PVC to the most well-known category of venture capital: independent venture capital (IVC). To take into account unobserved firm heterogeneity and the endogenous nature of VC financing, we resort to a system generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) including external instruments for PVC and IVC variables. The sample includes a panel of 1,312 young high-tech manufacturing companies from six European countries. Our results confirm that European young high-tech companies are financially constrained and that IVC is effective both in increasing firm's investments and in alleviating their dependence on current cash flows. The impact of PVC is, instead, very limited. PVC-backed firms increase their investments right after a financing round, but no effect is observed in the long term. Moreover the investments of PVC-backed firms are still affected by their current cash flows.

The Role of Leadership in High Tech Manufacturing Companies in a Changing Environment

This article aims to examine the role of leadership after a change in the business environment of a company, such as a Merger and Acquisition, in high tech manufacturing companies. Particularly as the number of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) continues to increase and during recession times is one of the most common strategy, more leaders are called upon to to develop their skills an play the most important role for the company strategy. For this purpose both qualitative and quantitative methods are used to examine the effect of leadership after a Merger and Acquisition in some Greek companies that operate in manufacturing business. Findings indicate that in many cases the change that occurs as a result of a merger is imposed on the leaders who have the critical role not only to communicate effectively the company strategy but also to find the correct ways to apply the requested performance management strategies, such as recognition, innovation and others in the new company employees.

Towards a cross-cultural framework of strategic international human resource control: the case of Taiwanese high-tech subsidiaries in the USA

Due to the growing expansion of newly emerging multinational companies (MNCs) in the USA market, it seems pertinent to explore how to manage their Western industrialized subsidiaries in terms of human resource management. This study combines the institutionalism, resource dependence perspective, and control theory to provide an integrative framework in an attempt to investigate the cross-cultural determinants of strategic international human resource control over MNCs' subsidiaries. By a qualitative analysis of 10 Taiwanese top high-tech manufacturing companies operating in the USA, our findings are as follow: In order to perform subsidiary's value-added activities, multinationals need to identify the value and capabilities need for these activities. At the same time, subsidiaries also need to compare the cultural advantage of the home country in terms of these activities. In addition, from the perspective of cross-cultural influence, input control is designed to respond to high integration and high adaptation; output control is executed in the case of low integration and high cultural adaptation; while behavioural control is used to respond to high integration and low adaptation, simultaneously in the case of low value of subsidiary's activities.

Measuring business performance in the high-tech manufacturing industry: A case study of Taiwan's large-sized TFT-LCD panel companies

The nature of competition in the high-technology manufacturing industry has changed dramatically over the last two decades, and any of the traditional indicators of business performance are insufficient today. We have identified a new set of financial and non-financial performance indicators that can be used by high-tech manufacturing companies and have developed a business performance evaluation model. A data envelopment analysis (DEA), an analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making approach are used in the model. Data from large-sized thin-film transistor liquid-crystal display panel companies in Taiwan were collected via a field survey and from various published databases and were fed into the model to determine the relative business performance of the companies. We hope that our findings will help high-tech manufacturing executives determine their companies’ strengths and weaknesses and lead to future improvements in business operations.

On Pricing and Composition of Bundles

This paper addresses the problem of how to determine the composition and price of a bundle so as to maximize the total expected profit. To motivate the problem, we use as a setting a high‐tech manufacturing company that operates in a competitive environment, is not a leader in the industry, and is constantly reacting to bundles introduced by the leader. Bundles are sets of components that must meet technical constraints. The company's objective is to build a bundle and offer it in a market where it will compete with other bundles. Consumers purchase the bundle that maximizes their utility after examining all available bundles. The company selection of the bundle's components and its price is made in light of the bundles against which it will be competing and the uncertainty in the consumer choice process. The optimal decision could be found by solving a nonlinear mixed integer program, which is difficult to solve. Instead, we propose an efficient solution procedure to determine the optimal composition of the bundle and the price at which it should be offered. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of extensions of the research to cases that consider multiple segments of customers and/or multiple bundles.

Problems of establishing service supply relationships: Evidence from a high-tech manufacturing company

This paper identifies areas, which may cause problems when establishing service supply relationships. Case research has been conducted within the service division of a global manufacturing company, analysing 11 instances where the company established or attempted to establish a relationship with a supplier to provide services as part of their offering to the end-customer. Four problem areas are identified through inductive case analysis. First, writing legal agreements for service exchanges. Second, clearly specifying service processes to be transferred to suppliers. Third, handing over service delivery to suppliers. Fourth, losing control over the relationship with the customer. These problems expand on already known problems of establishing supply relationships. Suggestions for how the problems may be moderated are also provided.

The Persistence of Flexible Organizational Routines: The Role of Agency and Organizational Context

Once regarded as stable and inflexible, organizational routines are increasingly seen as capable of being adapted to the situation at hand and a potentially important source of endogenous change in organizations. This paper considers why routines that are performed flexibly may nonetheless persist over time. Drawing on data from participant observation of a high-tech manufacturing company, I identify factors that contribute to both the flexibility and persistence of a routine. First, individuals and groups approach routines with different intentions and orientations, suggesting that agency shapes particular routine performances. Second, routine performances are embedded in an organizational context that, while it may not restrict the flexible use of a routine, may constrain its ongoing adaptation. Finally, accounting for the relative power of individuals sheds light on the interaction between agency and context in routine performance and explains why the actions of some individuals, but not others, can change routines. This paper draws on recent work that conceptualizes routines as ongoing accomplishments, and it extends it by identifying how actors and contexts shape both individual performances of routines and contribute to their persistence or change over time.

Development needs and means of product innovation management in Finnish manufacturing companies

The management of the early phases of the product development process is critical for the success of the whole product development. This study clarifies the management problems and bottlenecks in the early phases of product development. The purpose of this study was to determine important development needs and means of product innovation management in five leading Finnish high-tech manufacturing companies. We developed a systematic analysis approach in order to form an extensive company level view of development needs and means. The developed analysis approach helped to collect different department representatives' partly divergent views of the causes and effects of product innovation management problems and form a common, comprehensive company level picture of the causes and effects. Causal analysis produced more understanding of effective means to remove problems and vicious loops of product innovation management.

Informal Problem Solving in the Technology-Mediated Work Place

This paper reports the findings of a three-year ethnographic study of problem-solving activities in a high-tech computer manufacturing company. Contrary to the expressed belief that technology redu...

Market Intelligence Dissemination across Functional Boundaries

The authors extend previous research by examining antecedents and consequences of the market intelligence dissemination process across functional boundaries. Their study, involving 788 nonmarketing managers in high-tech equipment manufacturing companies, suggests that both dissemination frequency and formality have nonlinear effects on perceived intelligence quality. In addition, they find evidence of a mere formality effect; that is, intelligence received through formal channels appears to be used more than that obtained through informal channels. The authors also find that the frequency with which market intelligence is disseminated is related to interfunctional distance, joint customer visits, senders’ positional power, a receiver's organizational commitment, and trust in a sender. Additionally they find the formality of the dissemination process is shaped by interfunctional distance, receivers’ trust in senders, and structural flux. Interestingly, the effects of internal environmental volatility (i.e., structural flux) appear to be different from those of external environmental volatility (i.e., market dynamism). For example, structural flux is found to affect dissemination formality, but not frequency, whereas the opposite is true for market dynamism.

The Fusion Systems Corporation story

Fusion Systems Corporation is a successful $50 million per year high-tech manufacturing company based in Rockville, Maryland. It consists of two businesses, each of which develops, builds and sells capital equipment to a variety of end-users around the world. The first business makes equipment for UV-curing, which is an important niche technology for "drying" special inks, coating and adhesives for a multitude of applications in many industries. The second business makes front-end processing equipment for integrated circuit fabrication. In addition, we have spawned a new company, Fusion Lighting, Inc., which is pursuing some novel concepts aimed at niches in the visible lighting industry. Each of these businesses had its origin in a core technology which the five founders of Fusion Systems

Marketing control and performance in early-growth companies

This article examines the relationship between market performance and marketing control systems used by early-growth electronic component and instrument manufacturers. Essentially, “marketing control” means keeping things on track. Long pushed aside by the excitement of planning and organizing business ventures, controlling operations, particularly marketing operations, has received little attention. This is regrettable because control is the only mechanism which ensures that resources are allocated efficiently and that strategic objectives are met. Also, for the early-growth high tech company, which is already in a state of flux, developing an appropriate marketing control system is essential to its ability to meet and respond to the recurring challenges brought about by the pace at which change is occurring. In this article the author examines the issue of marketing control from a theoretical as well as an empirical perspective. First, the author presents a framework for evaluating the marketing control system within a company. The core of the framework presents the essential elements of marketing control: feedback and corrective action. Bounding the core is: 1. 1. The Formal Marketing Organization. Delimits the company's capability to enact the control processes. 2. 2. Marketing Culture. The subjective, interpretive aspect of organizational life, which determines what control components and marketing structure are valued in the company. The framework is used to analyze the marketing control systems of 20 early-growth high tech manufacturing companies. Four hierarchical configurations of the control system elements are identified and the companies assigned to one of the following configurations: 1. I. seeking some sales. 2. II. making good on sales. 3. III. seeking profitable sales. 4. IV. making profitable sales. Four companies possessed none of the elements of control. There were merely operations which produced results. As a consequence the companies were judged to be generally unsuccessful in focusing their resources on the markets that they wished to serve. In addition, the market performances of these firms, relative to others in the sample, were poor. Ten Stage II companies, in their attempts to expand sales and to remedy logistical problems associated with making deliveries on sales, had developed formal sales departments. Unlike the four companies which were placed in Stage III, these companies put little emphasis on the financial accountability of sales and marketing. Consequently, their abilities to evaluate or steer profit performances mitigated against their achieving high levels of market performance. Only two companies were judged sufficiently different from other companies to warrant placement in Stage IV. These companies focused on developing marketing structures and reporting procedures which provided real time feedback on market performances. Because of this, they appeared able to identify market opportunities that were defensible in the long run and in which they could exercise control over profits. In conclusion, the findings indicate that greater control of marketing operations correlates with stronger market performances. When performance is measured in terms of absolute sales, sales growth. cumulative cashflow and profitability, companies with more evolved marketing control systems perform noticeably better than do others in the sample.

Intelligent knowledge-based systems: a tool for manufacturing planning and scheduling

The careful integration of intelligent knowledge-based systems (IKBS) can help to solve the problem of growing planning and scheduling complexity. Based on the project we are conducting for a medium-sized high-tech manufacturing company, this article presents the first lessons we learned and the first results we got investigating practical applications of knowledge engineering. The following issues are considered: when did we find the knowledge engineering approach justified to solve planning and scheduling problems; what did we do to support a typical manufacturing decision like: “Do I make or do I buy a part”; how do we organize our projects and which tools are we using.