Title: Manufacturing strategy implementation and performance benchmarking in Indian packaging product manufacturing companies

Authors: Pradip P. Patil; B.E. Narkhede; Milind M. Akarte

Addresses: Mechanical Engineering Department, SIES Graduate School of Technology, Navi Mumbai, 400706, India ' Department of Production and Industrial Engineering, VJTI, Mumbai, 400019, India ' National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Vihar Lake, Mumbai, 400087, India

Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to assess the competitiveness of the manufacturing firm. The approach adopted for assessing the competitiveness is through manufacturing strategy implementation and performance benchmarking which will guide manufacturers for improving the current manufacturing decisions. The proposed integrated framework not only helps in quantifying and comparing the current manufacturing performance but also facilitate to pin point misaligned manufacturing decisions that needs to be focused for superior competitiveness. The intent of this paper is also to provide recommendations for plants committed to performance benchmarking. For analysing the competitiveness, plants are classified in four groups based on the increasing level of manufacturing strategy implementation using cluster analysis. A case of a manufacturing plant has been used to demonstrate its level of competitiveness and the areas of improvements based on benchmark values. Performance benchmarking is carried out by assessing difference in performance of a plant.

Keywords: competitiveness; manufacturing strategy; strategy implementation; performance benchmarking; manufacturing decisions; manufacturing levers; manufacturing outputs; India; cluster analysis; packaging industry.

DOI: 10.1504/IJC.2016.075888

International Journal of Competitiveness, 2016 Vol.1 No.1, pp.33 - 52

Received: 21 Nov 2014
Accepted: 06 May 2015
Published online: 12 Apr 2016 *