A FRAMEWORK FOR MANUFACTURING STRATEGY ANALYSIS IN THE WAKE OF REDUCING PRODUCT LIFE-CYCLES - A CASE OF A MULTINATIONAL IN A NEWLY INDUSTRIALIZING COUNTRY

Global competition, improved processing technologies and shorter produ ct life-cycles have resulted in a dynamic and unstable environment for the entire manufacturing industry. This is particularly true in the c ase of multinational companies with their offshore manufacturing facil ities in newly industrializing countries such as Thailand Typical prob lems faced are those of managing the human resource and achieving time ly coordination between the parent company and its subsidiary. The con ventional approach in formulating and evaluating various manufacturing strategies, particularly in this environment, suffers from a number o f limitations. An effort has therefore been made to present a framewor k for generating and evaluating strategies, systematically(incremental ly), in a top-down, bottom-up manner, thereby eliminating some of the major drawbacks in the current frameworks. It is proposed that strateg ies be divided in terms of their typology, referred to as the 'defensi ve', 'aggressive' or 'innovative' strategies corresponding to low cost , high quality and throughput or flexibility attributes. By proper clu stering, it should be possible to define the typical characteristics o f each archetype. It is sh own that establishing a suitable 'hierarchy ' of underlying factors can allow systematic generation of strategies. Feasible ones can then be evaluated by using a 'simulated performance measurement' approach.