Exploring the trade-off concept

The concept of the "trade-off" is increasingly seen as central to operation s strategy, because it forms the foundation of how, ive conceptualise the i mprovement process. A case-based methodology is employed to explore manager s' cognition regarding the idea of operations tradeoffs. Findings from the five case studies examined indicate that the idea of trade-offs is not the problematic issue for practising managers that it is for academics, indeed it is an easily understood concept which describes the operational compromi ses routinely made by managers. The significance of specific trade-offs wit hin any operation is likely to be governed by two factors. These are, first , the degree of "importance" of the trade-off in terms of the impact it wil l have on overall operations competitiveness. The second is the "sensitivit y" of the trade-off Sensitivity is the degree of change that will be caused to one element of the trade-off when changes are made to the other.