IMPROVING INTERFACE CONGRUENCE BETWEEN MANUFACTURING AND MARKETING ININDUSTRIAL-PRODUCT MANUFACTURERS

Volatile market conditions force managers to make strategic decisions concerning new product development, process innovation and capacity pl anning within more limited time than ever. This time pressure on strat egic decisions inevitably calls for a higher degree of consensus betwe en related functional areas on cross-departmental decision problems wh ich occur at their interface. This consensus is termed interface congr uence. An interface congruence model based on five integration facilit ating factors was proposed and tested through an empirical survey. Con sistent understanding of corporate strategic objectives, extensive use of coordination mechanisms and manufacturing flexibility showed signi ficant direct relationships with interface congruence. A closer custom er relationship was also related to higher interface congruence if the re was extensive use of coordination mechanisms. Vendor relationships, however, did not show a significant relationship with interface congr uence. They did show a significant direct relationship with manufactur ing flexibility and thus seemed to indirectly influence interface cong ruence through the relationship with manufacturing flexibility. Many p ractical ideas for implementing these factors for facilitating integra tion were also found through case studies on two selected manufacturer s with high interface congruence. These abundant practical ideas rangi ng from organizational structure to information technology will help p ractitioners to improve interface congruence in real business settings .