PERFORMANCE TRADE-OFFS IN MANUFACTURING PLANTS

A sample of 782 manufacturing plants drawn from the UK Best Factor Awa rds database was used to investigate the nature of trade-offs between different measures of manufacturing performance. Each plant was ranked within its industry on each performance measure, a high ranking indic ating good performance on that measure and a low ranking indicating po or performance. By comparing the ranking of each plant within its indu stry on each performance measure it was possible to determine the exte nt to which good performance on one measure was correlated with good p erformance on other measures. Rankings on added value per employee pou nd, quality consistency, delivery reliability, speed of delivery and t he rate of new product introduction were positively correlated, sugges ting that good performance on each of these factors is associated with good performance on the rest. Only the extent to which a plant exhibi ted product variety showed conventional trade-off characteristics, bei ng negatively correlated with rankings on added value per employee pou nd and the rate of new product introduction. This implies that, provid ed that individual operating units can be organized so that each is fo cused on a relatively narrow product range, trade-offs can be avoided.