Manufacturing networks and supply chains: an operations strategy perspective

1. Introduction The fact that business today is international is indisputable. During the last decade there has been an explosive increase in both international trade and foreign direct investment, and [...]
The purpose of this paper is to analyze manufacturing networks and supply chains from an operations strategy perspective. These two areas have traditionally been treated as separate research tracks, but with the ongoing globalization of markets and operations there is a need to integrate these complementary disciplines to study networks of facilities. In this paper we examine the two research areas based on two structural decision categories in an operations strategy, viz. facilities and vertical integration. We present a typology for the analysis of network systems resulting in four basic network configurations. Coordination of activities within the network is contingent upon the configuration, thus resulting in four coordination approaches. The configuration and coordination analyzes can be used as a foundation for further research in the context of integrating manufacturing network and supply chain theory. Keywords: Global manufacturing; Logistics; Operations management; Operations strategy; Supply chain management; Value network