Manufacturing Strategy: At the Intersection of Two Paradigm Shifts

The concept of “manufacturing strategy” is still, in human terms, barely past adolescence. In years, it is younger than most of the MBAs who study it today. So it is not surprising that–like them–it has been undergoing almost continual growth and elaboration throughout its short life, as it tested itself against the real world and as that world evolved. Today it is facing perhaps the greatest challenge in its short history, as it finds itself in the crossfire of debates about core aspects of its two parent disciplines: manufacturing management and competitive strategy. This paper begins by briefly reviewing some of the key steps in the conceptual development of the manufacturing strategy paradigm, then describes the attacks now being directed at both the manufacturing management and the competitive strategy paradigms, and finally discusses the new perspectives that these two paradigm shifts are shedding on some familiar problems.