Course syllabus

Course-PM

TEK195 Manufacturing strategy lp4 VT20 (7.5 hp)

The course is offered by the Department of Technology Management and Economics

Contact details

Examiner:    Peter Almström Tel: 772 1283 peter.almstrom@chalmers.se

Teachers:  

Carla Gonçalves Machado.   Tel: 772 6314 gcarla@chalmers.s

David Bennett  Tel: 072 247 0852 david.bennett@chalmers.se

Guest lectures (to be confirmed)

Nina Edh Mirzaei - Assistant Professor at Jönköping University / Member of the Advisory board for the regional initiative Automation Småland and of the European Operations Management Association (EurOMA) board.

Dan Li - Stena Industry Innovation Lab -  Dan has a background from production development and knowledge management. The research focuses on how different interactions between human and automation can support the humans’ role in a production environment.

Course purpose

Manufacturing strategy is about how firms can use their productive resources to compete in their markets. It takes an internal, resource-based, view on strategy. The course in Manufacturing Strategy is designed to equip students with practical frameworks and models for implementing and analyzing manufacturing strategies. The main aim of the course is to improve students' ability to develop and analyze develop and analyze manufacturing strategies.
Apart from the main aim of the course, the course is also intended to give students an opportunity to practice and develop a number of important skills: report writing, presentation technique, teamwork, and the ability to communicate ideas clearly, logically, and enthusiastically.

Schedule

See course calendar

Course literature (UPDATED - April 24th)

To complement the coursebook, articles will be used on certain occasions. The articles will be used as a complement to the course literature. They can be accessed through Chalmers Library. If this is not the case – copies will be provided.  Complementary readings and videos will be provided to support your studies but will not be examined.

Literature Seminar

Listed in the Modules

Textbook

The main course book is available from Cremona

Slack, Nigel & Lewis, Michael (2017), Operations Strategy 5^th ed, Pearson Education, UK, ISBN: 978-1-292-16249-2

Lecture articles

Strategic consensus

Edh Mirzaei, N., Fredriksson, A., & Winroth, M. (2016), Strategic consensus on manufacturing strategy content: Including the operators’ perceptions, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 36, No. 4, pp. 429-466.

Setting-up an International Production System

Bennett D.J. (2008), Global Logistics Concerns, Chapter 26 in Taylor G. D (ed) Logistics Engineering Handbook, CRC Press / Taylor and Francis, Boca Raton FL, USA. http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9780849330537

Ferdows, K. (1997), Making the Most of Foreign Factories, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 75, Mar/Apr, pp. 73-88

Miltenburg, J. (2009), Setting Manufacturing Strategy for a Company’s International Manufacturing Network, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 47, No. 22, pp. 6179-6203

Servitization

Baines, T., Lightfoot, H.  and Smart, P.  (2011), Servitization within manufacturing: Exploring the provision of advanced services and their impact on vertical integration, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 22 No. 7, pp. 947-954. https://doi.org/10.1108/17410381111160988

Sustainable operations/manufacturing

Opresnik, D., Taisch, M. The conceptualization of Sustainability in Operations Management, Procedia CIRP, Vol. 29, pp. 532-537.

Course design

The course will be conducted through a combination of the following:
Lectures*
Project work**
Literature seminars***

*There are some guest lectures in the course, and they are all compulsory. Missing a compulsory lecture needs to be compensated by interviewing classmates and writing two pages about the topic of that lecture.

**Guidelines for project work will be published in its specific module.

***5 Literature Seminars all compulsory. The list of pre-readings will be published in its specific module.

Learning objectives and syllabus

Learning objectives:

After completion of the course the student should be able to:

• relate manufacturing strategy as guidance for the organization's manufacturing activities;
• appraise manufacturing processes, applying a number of organizing theories, frameworks and analytical devices used by companies;
• assess the impact of manufacturing on sustainability and how manufacturing can contribute to a sustainable society;
• explain a number of conceptual tools for enhancing the performance of manufacturing processes;
• adapt these tools to the analysis of manufacturing processes;
• interpret the different production contexts and explain when and how it is appropriate to apply these different tools.

One important part, going all through the course, is sustainability in all its three dimensions: economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The relevance and scientific level are guaranteed through the participating teachers' involvement in Chalmers Production Area of Advance with a focus on sustainable production.

Examination form

The examination consists of two parts, an individual written exam (worth 50 points), seminars (10 points), and a group project (worth 40 points). Hence a maximum of 100 points can be achieved. 

To pass the course:

• A total minimum of 40 points is necessary.
• A minimum of 20 points obtained from the individual written exam is necessary.
• A minimum of 16 points obtained from the project report is necessary.
• Active attendance in mandatory activities is necessary.
• In case of absence in a mandatory activity an extra assignment is necessary.

In order to obtain grade 3, a total score of 40-59 points is needed.

In order to obtain grade 4, a total score of 60-79 points is needed.

In order to obtain grade 5, a total score of 80-100 points is needed.