Roger G. Schroeder’s research while affiliated with University of Minnesota and other places

Product clockspeed as represented by the rate of product changes has important implications for supply chain design. The literature suggests that external integration with customers and suppliers is associated with increased improvement and innovation capabilities of the focal firm. However, the way product clockspeed affects these relationships has seldom been subjected to empirical investigation. This study investigates whether product clockspeed moderates the relationship between external integration and improvement and innovation capabilities of manufacturing plants. Analysis of survey data collected from 238 manufacturing plants indicates a positive moderation effect of product clockspeed on the relationship between customer integration and plant improvement and innovation capabilities. However, product clockspeed does not have a significant moderation effect on the relationship between supplier integration and either of the two plant capabilities. This study provides theoretical and managerial insights into aligning external integration with plant capabilities under the contingency of product clockspeed.

Previous literature has extensively investigated the impact of supply chain integration on mass customisation and plant performance, but little research has been conducted to examine the impact of functional integration within the focal firm on mass customisation and plant performance. This article seeks to demonstrate this impact theoretically and empirically. Organisational information processing theory and the resource-based view of the firm are used to relate functional integration, mass customisation, and plant performance. Structural equation modelling is applied to analyse a conceptual model with survey data collected from 266 manufacturing plants. The results indicate that functional integration has a significant positive impact on mass customisation and operational performance. Mass customisation partially mediates functional integration's impact on operational performance. Results also indicate that mass customisation's impact on customer satisfaction is not direct. Rather, the relationship is fully mediated by operational performance. Managerial implications of these research findings are discussed.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present and test a new model for competitive capabilities. Traditionally, a cumulative model has been viewed as having one sequence of building competitive capabilities in a firm in support of market needs, including quality, delivery, cost efficiency and flexibility. Although appealing as a conceptual model, empirical testing has not been able to fully support the cumulative model. This paper acknowledges the need for a hybrid approach to managing capability progression. It brings together the literature on trade‐offs, cumulative capabilities, and order winners and qualifiers. Design/methodology/approach A new hybrid approach for modelling competitive capabilities is tested empirically using data from the high performance manufacturing (HPM) study, round 3, including three industries and seven countries – a total of 211 plants. Findings The hybrid model shows significantly better fit with the data from the sample than the cumulative models suggested by previous literature. Empirical support is found for the traditional perception that a high level of quality is a prerequisite for a high level of delivery performance. However, cost efficiency and flexibility do not exhibit a cumulative pattern. Instead, the results show that they are developed in parallel. The findings suggest that a balance between cost efficiency and flexibility is built upon high levels of quality and delivery performance. Research limitations/implications Since we limit the empirical investigation to three industries and seven countries, it would be interesting to extend the testing of this model to more industries and countries. This research shows that combining perspectives and insights from different research streams – in this case, trade‐off theory and the concepts of cumulative capabilities, and order winners and qualifiers – can be fruitful. Practical implications The results of this paper provides managers with guidelines concerning the configuration of competitive capabilities. First, a qualifying level of quality needs to be attained, followed by a qualifying level of delivery. Then, a balance between potential order winners, i.e. cost efficiency and flexibility, needs to be attained. Originality/value This paper presents a new approach to modelling competitive capabilities that synthesises previous research streams and perspectives from cumulative capabilities, contesting capabilities (trade‐offs), and order winners and qualifiers.

The cumulative capability or the ‘sand cone’ model (Ferdows and De Meyer, 1997 has been central in the debate on relations among dimensions of manufacturing performance. The central thesis of this model is that manufacturing performance is cumulative and sequential, with quality performance forming the foundation. An implicit assumption underlying the model is that the indirect effects of quality leading to delivery, then to flexibility and finally cost are stronger than direct effects among these same performance dimensions. Despite its frequent use, the sand cone model has not been empirically tested for direct and indirect effects or for the sequence of effects. Most tests have used correlations or regression relationships that only establish positive relationships among dimensions, not the specific sand cone sequence. We conduct two new tests of the actual sequence of the sand cone theory using data from 189 manufacturing plants. We do not find universal support for the sand cone theory, since some plants in our data appear to be following the sand cone sequence, while others are not. Our empirical tests support other limited evidence in the literature that a contingency theory is needed rather than an outright rejection or acceptance of the sand cone model.

A typical approach to studying capabilities in the operations management literature is to assess the intended or realized competitive operational performance and their contribution to business and organizational objectives. While it is crucial to identify the operational performance that helps create competitive advantage, it is equally important to understand the means for delivering the needed performance at the operational level. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), we argue that routines are a critical source of operations capabilities and subsequently investigate operations capabilities by means of their underlying routines. Because a common problem to studying capabilities is the ambiguous and confusing definitions, we conduct an extensive literature review to address the semantic confusion among various definitions of capabilities and delineate it from other related terms. We identify improvement and innovation as two critical plant level capabilities, each consisting of a bundle of interrelated yet distinct routines. We then empirically measure the two capabilities as second-order latent variables and estimate their effects on a set of operational performance measures. The results suggest that routines form internally consistent bundles which are significantly related to operational performance. This supports our notion of “capabilities as routine bundles” that are difficult to imitate and thus a source of competitive advantage.

Purpose – Examining the strategic contingency of plant improvement capability and innovation capability. Two forms of fit between the two capabilities and competitive priorities were empirically tested. Design/Methodology/Approach – Data collected from a sample of 238 manufacturing plants were used to test the hypotheses using regression. Findings – The results provide partial support for fit as mediation. However, there was no evidence supporting fit as moderation. We found that improvement capability and innovation capability are associated with different competitive priorities and also have varying impact on different operational performance dimensions. Research limitations/implications – There are two limitations to this research: only three operations management (OM) practices are included in each capability examined; somewhat limited measures of competitive priorities and operational performance.Originality/value – This study examines multiple forms of fit between competitive priorities and operations capabilities. The findings can inform managers to selectively implement OM practices for developing the needed operations capabilities given the chosen competitive priorities.

Purpose Managing demand and supply uncertainties is critical for all manufacturers, but it has added importance for companies that intend to achieve mass customization (MC) ability because these uncertainties are an intrinsic characteristic of MC. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how managing uncertainties in a firm's demand and supply affects its MC ability. Design/methodology/approach Regression analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) are conducted on data collected from 189 manufacturing plants to empirically test two hypotheses. Findings Both demand and supply uncertainty management have a positive impact on a company's MC ability. However, managing either demand or supply uncertainties independently of the other is not enough to achieve MC ability; instead, a company needs to concurrently manage both demand and supply uncertainties to achieve MC ability. Originality/value The current literature lacks a sound theoretical basis to link demand and supply uncertainty management with MC ability. The paper provides such a theoretical foundation, and systematically identifies several demand and supply uncertainty management mechanisms that enable firms to achieve superior MC ability. In addition, it is one of the first large‐scale empirical studies to address the impact of managing both demand and supply uncertainties on MC ability.

This paper discusses the relationship between uncertainty in a decision making environment and the desired characteristics of information used for decision making. The work is aimed at providing a better understanding of the variables that affect the design of Management Information Systems. An experiment was conducted using an inventory simulator. The subjects could decide on inventory control variables and the amount and type of information to be used in monitoring system performance. The demand for inventory was an external random variable under the control of the experimenter. The experiment investigated how different demand variances affected the decision information used, the decisions made, and the resulting decision effectiveness (cost.) It was found that decision review frequency was not affected by demand variability. However, age and degree of summary of information used were greatly affected. Subjects exposed to high variability used data with a shorter history and a higher level of detail than those exposed to low variability. It was also found that the number of reports used increased from the low to middle variance group, then decreased at very high variance. Subjects tended to “give-up” on their information system at high variance, and they relied on additional safety stock to prevent frequent stockouts. Finally, the correlation between the information used and decision effectiveness as measured by cost was low. This result was contrary to the subjects' beliefs that more and better information produced “better” decisions. It indicates that although variability may strongly affect preferences for different types of information, the information used may not in turn affect decision performance.

In the past most inventory formulations have utilized cost minimization or profit maximization as an optimizing criterion. When viewed from the standpoint of the owner or investor, maximizing the return on investment (ROI) is an appropriate criterion for many types of inventories. This paper proposes ROI as a criterion for inventory models and derives optimal reorder rules for some common assumptions. An economic order quantity that differs greatly from the traditional formulas is discussed. The paper also enumerates the conditions under which ROI is an appropriate criterion and contrasts it to the traditional cost minimization and profit maximization criteria.

Mass customization has gained increasing importance in recent years due to its ability to provide customized products efficiently and effectively, and manufacturing companies are continuously searching for ways to develop their mass-customization ability. Despite extensive literature focusing on mass customization, few studies have systematically examined the impact of work-design practices on a company's mass-customization ability. Using the Sociotechnical Systems theory as a foundation, we link work-design practices with mass-customization ability, specifically identifying ten work-design practices and examining their impact on mass-customization ability using survey data and empirical research methods. The results support our hypothesized links and suggest that work-design practices that manage both the technical and the social dimensions for achieving organization success have significant impact on a company's ability to achieve mass customization.