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Almost everyone who leads, works for, or interacts with a manufacturing company can benefit from seeing a factory firsthand, David Upton and Stephen Macadam advise. For example, plant visits allow senior executives to understand a site's performance potential, to assess a competitor, or to rally the frontline workforce. Shop floor operators can assess another plant's operations and apply what they've learned in their own factories. But even people who know that plant tours are valuable can find putting them to effective use difficult. First, unclear objectives often turn touring into tourism. Second, many people lack an organizing framework with which to structure observations and accelerate learning. Upton and Macadam show visitors how to set clear objectives and apply an organizing framework in order to make sense of what they see and hear on a plant tour. In this way, visitors will develop a deep understanding of the plant's manufacturing capabilities--and how best to exploit them.

Provides a framework for maximizing the value of a plant tour, or a single visit to an operation. There are three principal types of plant tours within this framework tht can provide information about four broad types of operational performance.

An ICS consultant considers issues at the start of a full-scale implementation of SAP software for a large client. The enterprise resource planning (ERP) software will integrate previously fragmented business processes and so must be supported by the entire client organization.

By now, the monolithic factory was supposed to have given way to the virtual factory: a community linked by an electronic network that would enable numerous partners to operate as one. But for most companies, that promise has been elusive. The traditional technologies--electronic data interchange, proprietary groupware, and wide-area networks--are proving inadequate. Traditional systems cannot meet the three basic requirements of a large-scale virtual factory. First, an internetwork must be able to accommodate members whose IT sophistication varies enormously. Second, it must, while maintaining tight security, cope with partners in both transient and long-term relationships. Finally, it must provide a high level of functionality, including letting partners operate programs on one another's computers.

AeroTech Service Group uses Internet protocols and other advanced computing technologies to interconnect the IS networks of McDonnell-Douglas Aerospace with many of its customers, suppliers, and other partners. The case discusses AeroTech's product and explores options for growing the firm.

A paper mill's paper machines are a bottleneck in the operation. The causes include poor scheduling, lack of investment, and ineffective process control. The plant manager is charged with improving this situation fairly rapidly and has a number of proposals for change from which to choose.

Volkswagen and Shanghai Sedan, have developed a joint venture to build western-quality autos in China. Having developed a supplier network capable of delivering quality components, the company now faces a need to expand capacity (demanding rapid expansion of their supplier network). In addition, Volkswagen is under pressure to bring more of the design activity over to China. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Examines two dilemmas often faced by an operations consultant. First, the dual responsibility to both client and consulting firm. Second, the management of the often competing pressure to deliver immediate results, at the same time laying the foundation for long-term performance improvement.

Explores the management of technical disasters in which time plays a central role. Uses the experience of HMS Thetis and Apollo 13 to look at both successful and unsuccessful approaches.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 696-084.

Describes the application of statistical process control in a service industry. In this case, Annette Kluck must decide how to adopt manufacturing-based principles to a service process ranging from customer account setup to legal services.

Manufacturing managers in a broad array of industries agree that achieving low cost and high quality is no longer enough to guarantee success. In the face of fierce, low-cost competition and an army of high-quality suppliers, companies are increasingly concentrating on flexibility as a way to achieve new forms of competitive advantage. Having acknowledged the importance of flexibility, however, managers in industry after industry are finding it frustratingly difficult to improve. In a quest to help manufacturing managers begin to understand why the improvement of flexibility has been so elusive, author David Upton embarked on a study of more than 60 factories in North America that manufacture fine paper. Upton found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the flexibility of the plants depended much more on the people in the operation than on any technical factor.

A high-technology manufacturing company was recently given profit-and-loss "stand-alone" status by its parent. No longer a captive supplier, it must seek new markets for its technology and products on the outside world. Describes a benchmarking study by a group of consultants to determine future operations improvement.

Supplement to the (A) case.

Rotron has recently entered the commercial motor market, after many years of servicing government military contracts. Faced with fierce commercial competition, Rotron has attacked its costs and reduced its delivery times and its plants. A new crisis, however, is causing it to rethink its just-in-time production system, and the plant manager must decide whether to re-introduce inventory for key production.

Allows students to use an alternative method to analyze the case.

Describes the development and exploitation of a radical new computer-integrated technology in the largely manual meat-processing industry. The technology has been developed by the meat industry's research organization over a period of 15 years and is now ready for commercial exploitation. Unfortunately, it is not clear how the industry can use the technology because its scale demands larger firms than currently exist and its operation requires expertise that the industry does not have. The commercializing firm is also under pressure to break the system into smaller modules, losing some of the benefits of computer integration, but gaining a dissemination path. There is another model for improvement in the industry, relying on incremental improvement, rather than radical technology change, and many have said that the project is doomed, because it might not provide the best path to improvement in the industry.

Describes the predicament of an overworked Western plant manager in a Chinese joint venture. The fourth in a line of such managers, he must deal with the combined problems of an inability to delegate, different customs and practices, and difficulties in information technology and plant control.

Daewoo Shipbuilding and Heavy Machinery rescued its plant from the labor riots of 1987 to make it the fastest improving shipyard in the world by 1994. With its competition in Korea making huge investments in additional capacity in anticipation of the end of the recession, Daewoo instead has to decide if its strategy of continuous investment can provide the needed capacity.

A paper company is unable to compete on cost as a result of the installation of three very efficient paper machines by competitors. Prices for its products are falling by the day, and the company is making a loss. In the face of such competition, management feels that the only course of action is to improve "flexibility" and/or take advantage of the flexibility they already have. The problem is that no one knows quite what flexibility is, let alone how to implement an improvement plan. The case describes four improvement paths, each of which might be considered to improve "flexibility." The conflicts between these plans are also considered by the company. In addition, the sales force gives a look at the flexibility requirements of the company from the customer's viewpoint.