No abstract

The topic of competitive priorities has attracted many of those interested in manufacturing strategy and stimulated a number of surveys in manufacturing industry. Much of this empirical work concentrates on large companies in industrialised economies while asserting the general applicability of findings. In contrast the survey reported here was conducted in a newly industrialising country, Turkey, focusing on small to medium‐sized manufacturing enterprises. Key personnel in 41 companies were questioned about the priorities of cost, quality, flexibility and, in particular, time. Process innovations, since these enable improvements in competitive priorities, were also examined. General similarities were evident between the Turkish, other European, and US situations. However, certain elements of quality and time were not ranked as highly in Turkey and the adoption levels of process innovations were lower. In contrast to US data, connections between competitiveness and time‐related performance measures were not apparent. Conclusions were drawn that Turkish manufacturing industry was generally at an earlier, quality‐dependent, stage in developing competitiveness and that time‐based competition was not yet evident.

No abstract

Competitive success is increasingly linked to implementing change in a coordinated manner within the organization and in the extended value network that embeds the organization. In particular, for manufacturers the successful implementation of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) can be linked to collaborative buyer-supplier relationships. Derives a model from the literature to link these aspects. Tests empirically major propositions from this model using data from 83 firms positioned at the top of the Turkish automotive industry supply chain. Establishes that companies with higher levels of AMT implementation collaborate more with their parts suppliers and companies are more successful in achieving their AMT implementation objectives if increased AMT implementation is coupled with more collaborative supplier relationships. Both AMT implementation levels and buyersupplier collaboration are shown to have significantly increased over a five-year period. While AMT implementation levels of individual firms appear to have diverged, levels of buyersupplier collaboration appear to have converged during the five years.

In this study, nutrient composition and use of silage after harvest of waste green parts (herbage) of tomato (Licopersicon esculentum L.) were researched as a wet forage source for ruminants. Three different silages of tomato herbage: without additive (TS), with 5% sugar beet molasses (TSm), or 5% crushed barley grain (TSb) were prepared. The forage quality and the in vitro ruminal digestibility, gas production, organic acids, and some estimated digestion parameters for different silages of tomato herbage were determined. Besides, the in vitro digestion values of using at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% rates instead of corn silage in the dairy cattle total mix ration (TMR) were researched. The lactic acid content of TSb silage was higher than those of the TS and TSm silages (P < 0.001). The ensiling of tomato herbage with barley decreased the levels of acetic, butyric, and propionic acids in the silage (P < 0.01). The use limits of tomato herbage silages instead of corn silage in dairy cattle TMR were determined as 25% for TS, 75% for TSb, and 100% for TSm in terms of in vitro gas production and other digestion parameters during 24-h incubation. The volume of methane produced for mL/g DM at 24 h was decreased by increasing TS in dairy cattle TMR (P < 0.001) but was not changed by increasing TSm and TSb in dairy cattle TMR (P > 0.05). Consequently, results have shown that tomato herbage should be ensiled with 5% molasses. However, it has been concluded that using tomato herbage silage with barley up to 75% or sugar beet molasses up to 100% instead of corn silage in dairy cattle ration did not have a negative effect in vitro.