The number of studies relating to best practice in manufacturing has been increasing at a rapid rate over the last few years. As companies strive to attain world-class manufacturing status the search for best practice has intensified. Focus has evolved from benchmarking as a means to improve company performance through the identification of best practice, to the need to identify, manage and transfer best practices. This paper discusses this evolution of focus and identifies key issues for consideration in best practice investigations. In particular, it addresses issues of methodology which can improve the quality of findings from studies of best practice and maximise company performance through the transfer of appropriate best practices.

Posits that disappointing results from the implementation of best practices are due to a failure to link practices to specific measurable objectives, failure to prioritise best practices, and a lack of analysis of necessary infrastructure practices. Describes the development of a framework for selecting practices which will improve operational performance in the area of manufacturing planning and control. Suggests that selection should be based on strength of relationships between practices and performance objectives and take into account dependency relationships between practices. Integrates theory and empirical data to investigate links between practices and performance, thereby providing a framework for selecting practices based on objectives and dependency relationship between practices. Case studies, structured interviews and postal questionnaires were used to develop and validate the framework presented.

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Abstract:The research described in this paper is concerned with examining trust issues in global teams and whether there are any implications for trust in respect to the cultural orientation of firms. Trust is the individual's (or group's) belief that another individual (or group) makes good faith efforts to behave in accordance with any commitments both explicit and implicit. This research was carried out as part of a collaborative project between Loughborough and Aston Universities. In this research it was decided to measure whether there was a relationship between perceived levels of trust in the organization and organizational culture as depicted by Cameron and Quinn in the working dynamics of virtual organizations. The research investigated the issue of trust in a number of business situations and showed that there does appear to be a relationship between trust and cultural orientation of firms for the working of virtual teams.

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The type of plant layout has very significant impact on the structure and operation of a manufacturing system. The current common and intuitive methods of selecting a suitable type of layout by using simple graphs of production volume versus number of parts manufactured in the plant, or production volume versus flexibility, can result in inaccurate decisions for such an important issue. This paper presents an alternative approach to the choice of plant layouts, which applies the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The methodology considers three main objectives for the selection of layouts: increasing flexibility, increasing production volume and reducing manufacturing costs. Each objective has a number of subobjectives. Three main types of layout are considered: functional (process) layout, group technology (cellular) layout and transfer (flow) lines. The AHP methodology has been applied as a knowledge-based system, which is integrated with another three knowledge-based systems for the technical and social conditions required for the successful implementation of each of the above types of layout. An example of the application of the AHP methodology is presented, which represents an important step towards proper validation of the methodology.

The authors are grateful to the Control, Design and Production Group of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for the award of a research grant to undertake the research described in this paper. They are also grateful to the companies in which field studies were undertaken.