A structural and quantitative process for manufacturing strategy formulation

Abstract

Today most research related to manufacturing formulation strategy processes concentrates on descriptive processes and conceptual models, and therefore lacks the capability of assessing the supportive degree of manufacturing strategy to competitive priorities, and also difficult to assess the congruence among various decisions of the manufacturing strategy. This paper proposes an approach for maunfacturing strategy formualtion process based on quality function deployment (QFD). The study starts by analyzing the formulation process of manufacturing strategy and the features QFD. Thereafter, a manufacturing strategy formulation process based on QFD is developed, which comprises two stages and ten steps. This approach use QFD as a transforming device to link competitive factors with manufacturing decision categories such as structural decision categories and infrastructural categories, and use QFD as a main tool in different stages of manufacturing strategy formulation process. This paper also integrates fuzzy set theory and house of quality (HOQ) in order to provide a structured tool to capture the inherent imprecision and vagueness of decision-relevant inputs and to facilitate the analysis of decision-relevant QFD information. Copyright©(2008) by Computers & Industrial Engineering.