Chapter 1 Summary

• Global competition increased significantly in the 1980s and has accelerated ever since.
• Over the past 30 years, the manufacturing output of countries such as the UK and US has declined in comparison to others such as Germany, Japan and France.
• Emerging nations in East and Southeast Asia are prospering from the development of their manufacturing industry.
• A nation’s prosperity depends on its comparative productivity with other countries. Emerging nations are successfully challenging Western economies and, for the first time in its history, the US may see a fall in living standards over the next 20 years.
• Asian automobile companies are significantly more productive than those in the more established manufacturing nations of North America and Europe.
• Successive UK governments have seen overseas competition as necessary for developing a strong domestic manufacturing base, but the UK manufacturing industry has been slow to respond.
• High-volume UK industries such as motorcycles, automobiles, trucks and shipbuilding have been lost to emerging nations.
• Many North American and European countries have failed to recognize the size of the competitive challenge they face and the impact of increasing world manufacturing capacity. There is still too little research and development investment. Senior managers lack operations experience and do not involve operations managers in strategic discussions.
• Operations managers must become less obsessed with meeting short-term performance targets and start thinking strategically. Managers striving to overcome competitors work and think differently to those simply meeting operational targets.
• Operations managers must take the initiative, change their role and think and act more strategically.